


the last war

by alreadybroken (lifeofsnark)



Series: Tommy/Lizzie [2]
Category: Peaky Blinders (TV)
Genre: Alright terrible content warnings first-, Antisemitism, Bad Sexual Politics, Canon-typical levels of, Drug Abuse, F/M, Hurt/Comfort, Light Choking, Lizzie needs a hug, Oral Sex, Praise Kink, Smut, Suicidal Ideation, Tommy needs a hug, a small amount of fluff who am I, all the best stuff, dom/sub elements, dub-con, it’s a continuation of series 5, just being safe it’s technically consensual, not between Tom and Lizzie, okay sex tags whoo, p in v, period typical fascism, riding lessons, unfortunately that period is also apparently NOW
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-23
Updated: 2020-04-03
Packaged: 2021-02-27 03:40:37
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 12
Words: 56,037
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22380445
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lifeofsnark/pseuds/alreadybroken
Summary: Tommy said that he would continue until he found the man he couldn’t defeat- and yet even after betrayal and ghosts and a gun to his head, he goes on. Michael is still attempting to wrest away control of Shelby Company Limited, Mosley and the British Union of Fascists have friends in surprisingly high places, and Tommy has to work like never before to hold on to all he’s built- and his wife, as well.Caught in a fight that Tommy can’t afford to lose, Lizzie finds herself working with him more closely than ever, and maybe, just maybe (and against her better judgement), she can learn to trust him again.OR: The Tommy/Lizzie fic with too many plots, too many fascists, and a boatload of touching.
Relationships: Tommy Shelby/Lizzie Stark
Series: Tommy/Lizzie [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1694923
Comments: 252
Kudos: 236





	1. Conflagration

> #### The world breaks everyone and afterward many are strong at the broken places. But those that will not break it kills. It kills the very good and the very gentle and the very brave impartially. If you are none of these you can be sure it will kill you too but there will be no special hurry.
> 
> #### \--Ernest Hemingway, A Farewell to Arms

* * *

It was a familiar pain, the bloody impact of a bullet tearing through his flesh. The crack of the gun echoed over the stubbled, foggy field, and his blood was warm as it trickled over his skin. He could smell iron and mud and cordite smoke, and with his eyes closed he could be back in France, back where he’d died the first time. 

It was all familiar (the pain, the smell, the bone-rattling impact) and comforting in its predictability. The only thing that came as a surprise was this: the bullet hadn’t been fired from his gun. (His gun, the one that had been pressed against his temple like a lover’s kiss.)

Tommy fell, his breath rushing out of him when he hit the half-frozen ground, the cold seeping into his bones as his blood trickled, hot and wet, over the soil below. 

_Easier this way,_ he thought as clouds and mist swirled over him, blurring _here_ and _there_ together into a too-near horizon of imperceptible bleak greyness. _Easier for Ruby, easier for Charlie._ Maybe this way, dead at someone else’s hand, he’d break the curse that plagued his family. His grandfather had killed himself. His mother had died by her own hand. He’d wanted to take his own life, god, he’d fucking woken up in the mornings with his gun in his hand, whispering to him, silvery gunbarrel-blue words of peace and darkness and endless sleep. 

This was better. This was better than that. He should thank the dark figure in the fog, the one who’d pulled the trigger for him, but his eyes were heavy and his lips were numb and the ground was going to mud beneath him. 

_Ashes to ashes,_ Tommy thought, that familiar refrain of a soldier’s funeral. _Mud to mud._

“In the bleak midwinter,” he mumbled as the dark-coated figure bent over him. 

The world went dark, and Tommy knew no more. 

~~~

Lizzie thought she’d been prepared for the day when someone carried home the bloody body of her husband. She knew his will was prepared, knew he’d set aside more than enough for her and the children. She and Tommy both knew that he had no intention of dying in his own bed. He’d meet the devil with boots on his feet and a gun in his hand. 

Still. No amount of mental preparation and logical thinking can prepare you for the real thing. That’s the secret, the lie that every parent tells their children. The world really can be just as bad as the things we imagine inside our heads. And sometimes, it’s worse. 

“Put him fucking down,” Arthur yelled, pointing his revolver at the head of the man who’d kicked open the front door. He had one white eye over a scarred and twisted cheek, and Tommy hung, ragdoll-still, over the man’s broad shoulder. Tom’s head and chest were obscured by the marked man’s torso, but she could see the blood that trailed out behind him. 

She didn’t think it belonged to the stranger. 

“Madame, I do believe I have your fucking husband,” said the bearded man, ignoring Arthur entirely. 

“Put him, you just put him down, right fucking now, and then I’m gonna kill ya,” said Arthur, pressing the barrel of his gun against the stranger’s hat. “Tom’s not gonna stop me this time, not this fucking time. You and me, Alfie, this time it’s-”

Lizzie cut him off. “Kitchen,” she said. “Through here.”

“Yes ma’am,” said Alfie, giving her a sardonic two-fingered salute. 

“Mrs. Shelby?” Frances asked, hurrying out of the kitchen ahead of Lizzie as she led the men back, past the stairs, and down the three short steps. 

“Get the medical kit, Frances,” Lizzie called. “And call Alice down.”

Dinner was on the stove, flatware had been set on the table, and Lizzie ignored it all. Tommy was bleeding on their floors, there were men with loaded guns in her house, and all the worries and thoughts that had been living in Lizzie’s head had gone quiet in the face of this catastrophe. Maybe she was a little like Tommy, in that way. Tragedy made the world go quiet and still; disaster brought events to a crawl: easy to follow, easy to understand. 

“Dinner will be late, Mrs. Flagg,” said Lizzie coolly as Alfie laid Tommy on the heavy wooden table that ran along one wall. The cook nodded, cut off gas to their new stove, and exited the room on silent feet.

“Tried not to hit anything too important,” said the tall bearded man, dropping his felted black hat onto the bench. He began to peel Tommy’s coat away from his shoulder, where the crisp white of his shirt had gone scarlet. 

“I knew we couldn’t fucking trust you, I told Tom, I told him we couldn’t fucking trust you, but does he ever listen-”

Alfie had wadded up kitchen towels and was holding them to Tommy’s collarbone, his weight braced against the wound. Tommy didn’t twitch, his head lolling to the side. “Arthur,” he said, a slight lisp turning the word into a sing-songy _Arfur,_ “Shut the fuck up.”

“Put the gun away,” said Lizzie, watching the doorway for Alice. Tommy had left her in charge of finding a new maid to help in the nursery, and it had been with grim foresight and Shelby calculation that Lizzie had hired Alice Hayes. Alice had been a nurse in one of the veteran’s hospitals after the war, and Lizzie had known that the day would come when her skills would be needed. 

(Lizzie had hoped it would be for something normal: Charlie taking a tumble from his pony, or the cook having an accident with a knife. But part of her, the part that knew when a john was a bad fucking bet or when a storm was brewing over the horizon… that part had known it would be for this. Their household saw more bullet wounds than accidents, these days.)

“But Lizzie-”

Arthur didn’t get a chance to finish. As he turned towards Lizzie, one of Alfie’s bloodstained hands snapped out, grabbed the barrel of the gun, and wrenched it from Arthur’s grasp. 

“The lady told you to put the gun away, right?” said Alfie, tucking the gun into the pocket of his heavy coat. “We’re in her fucking house, and we listen to her fucking rules. These boys have no bloody manners,” he said, looking back at Lizzie. 

She nodded, completely confused by this bear of a man. “Did you shoot him?” she asked. 

“Yeah,” he said, looking back down at the wad of bloody rags he was holding to Tommy’s chest. “Yeah, I fucking shot ‘im. Mr. Alfred Solomon, at your lady’s fucking service.”

Alice and Frances clattered into the kitchen, and Alfie stepped away as they bent over Tommy, Frances unpacking a heavy black bag and Alice cutting Tommy’s coat and shirt away with kitchen shears.

“Clean exit,” said Alice, tipping Tommy onto his side so she could look at his back. “Another scar for him then, lucky lad. Losing a lot of blood.”

“Tried my best,” said Alfie, pushing past Arthur and walking to the heavy, oversized sink. 

“Why’d you fucking shoot him?” Arthur asked, his hands clenching and unclenching at his sides. “Why are you even fucking here?”

“I was listening to the radio program, wasn’t I? Listening to that fucking cunt running his mouth, waiting for Tom to make his move, and it never came, did it. So one of me boys calls me, and says a bunch of people’ve been killed and locked up, and I think, “Alfie, something didn’t go off right, your friend Tommy might need some wise fucking counseling,” so I caught a train, and here we are.”

“That doesn’t explain why you shot him,” said Lizzie, flicking her eyes from Tommy’s prone form to Alfie’s devastated face. Frances and Alice were busy, needles and reddening gauze flying in and out their hands like a dance, their steps following the thready music of Tommy’s tired heart. 

“He had a gun to his fucking head,” said Alfie, delicately scrubbing under his fingernails. “I told him, I says, “Your condition’s worse, mate,” but off he goes with his mad fucking plan to kill an MP.”

“He had a gun to his head,” said Lizzie slowly. “His own gun.”

“S’what I said,” said Alfie, drying his hands on the thighs of his dark trousers. “Figured a bullet in the shoulder was better than in his fucking head, yeah? Though he does have a tough fucking skull.” He turned and squinted over at Tommy. “Think I was a bit off. One eye, see, your perception goes strange. His own fault, though. Couldn’t fucking shoot me, couldn’t kill Mosley. You’re losing your fucking touch, Tom,” he called to Tommy’s unconscious body.

Alice had finished with the inside of Tommy’s wound and had closed the hole in his chest. With a surprising amount of strength they rolled Tommy onto his belly and set about tending the bloody hole in his back, his pretty freckled back, the one that hid a spine of steel and spite. 

He’d been trying to kill himself, then. Trying to kill himself _again,_ because Lizzie knew about the opium, knew about the gin, knew he still whispered Grace’s name in his sleep. It hurt, but ...remotely. It was a pain she’d become used to carrying. This wasn’t a fight she could have with him, and it was a negotiation where she had no power, and she knew it. Either Tom would kill himself of he wouldn’t, and Lizzie couldn’t allow herself to care. 

(She couldn’t allow herself to care any more than she already did. She’d loved him for ages, her peaky robber boy.)

The kitchen door burst open, and Johnny Dogs tumbled down the stairs, his eyes wide. “Tom,” he said. “Who did this to you?”

“Him,” said Arthur, looking up from a rum bottle long enough to point at Alfie. Johnny’s eyes went wide, and Lizzie stepped into the middle, tired to her very bones of managing men’s violence in her own home. 

“Get out,” she said evenly, and when Johnny only looked at her, confusion plain on his every feature, Lizzie yelled, “Get out! Get the fuck out of this room, all of you. When Tommy’s cleaned up, I’ll find you. And when I find you, you’re going to tell me what happened. _All_ of it. And if you lie to me, Johnny Dogs, I’ll make sure you never see another bottle of rum from this house again. Arthur, you know I can make your life a living hell. Now get _out!”_

“Yes ma’am,” said Alfie, marching for the door and herding Arthur along with him, who shoved at Aflie’s chest, snarling like half-starved dog. “You heard the lady, off we go lads, c’mon.”

And then the kitchen was quiet, with only Lizzie’s own breaths and the low murmurs of Frances and Alice to be heard. 

He’d been keeping things from her again. She’d known he would, had accepted it, but now… she wouldn’t ignore this. Not any more. Tom had asked her to trust him, and so she would. She’d be trusted with the truth, too. 

~~~

“How is he?” Arthur asked, shooting up out of his seat when Lizzie walked into the parlor. 

“Sleeping,” said Lizzie, sinking into an empty chair by the fire. “We moved him into a guest room. Alice thinks he’ll be fine with some rest.”

“Rest,” Arthur scoffed. “Since when does Tommy fucking rest?”

“Now,” said Lizzie, crossing her legs and fixing Arthur with a hot stare. “And you’re going to tell me what happened. 

Together the three of them told her all of it: the deal with Jimmy McCavern, Aberama’s death, springing Barney, the assassination plot. All of it. They each knew different pieces, each had only been trusted with bits of Tommy’s plan, and as they talked the whole picture began to emerge.

“We can’t stay here,” said Lizzie, shooting to her feet. “Arthur, you said he was- was going on about how it didn’t make sense, that Mosley didn’t know about the plan, he couldn’t have, and he didn’t know who betrayed him?”

“Right,” said Arthur. 

Lizzie closed her eyes and took a long breath. “Black cat dreams,” she mumbled to herself. She should have known. 

“Oh, fuck,” said Alfie. 

“We can’t stay here,” she repeated. “Not until we know who- how this happened.”

“You saw what the Billy Boys did to me and Aberama,” said Johnny. “They’ve got no honor, those ones. It coulda been them.”

“You can come to mine,” said Arthur. 

“No,” said Lizzie. “It’s the first place they’ll look. Johnny- your wagons are still in the back fields?” 

He nodded. 

“Right,” she said. “There’s what, two in Charlie Strong’s yard? One in for repairs, and the one Tom used after Grace.”

“Right, Lizzie,” said Johnny. “You thinking of taking him on the road, yeah?” 

“Yes,” said Lizzie. “With the children, and Arthur. See if Charlie can come with Curly; I wouldn’t put it past McCavern’s men to turn up there; they know the canals almost as well as Curly does.”

“You see, my people- they wandered in the fucking desert for forty years. I am not going to fucking roll around the countryside in a painted fucking wagon, right? We aren’t a traveling people. So I’ll head back south, and if Tom wants to settle up, he can fucking call me, but I think we’re pretty bloody even, seeing as he couldn’t fucking shoot me the first time, and him with two working fucking eyes.”

Lizzie couldn’t bring herself to thank the man who’d shot her husband, but she came close. 

“I hate him,” said Arthur when Alfie was safely out the door. “I fucking hate him.”

“Arthur, take the car to Charlie Strong’s yard. Tell him what we’re doing, tell him that we’ll need supplies, need horses, all of it. Get him and Curly in one of the vardos, you take the other. Meet us out-”

“You’re leaving tonight?” Arthur asked. 

“Yes,” said Lizzie, nodding. “We’re leaving tonight. I’m not risking my children, Arthur. We’ve got the wagon Tom and I took out to bury Dangerous. Johnny and his kin and I will head out…”

She trailed off, looking at Johnny and hoping inspiration would strike. 

“We’ll head west, meet you at the fairgrounds north of Birmingham where John got married, yeah?” said Johnny. “We can stay there a few days if we need to. Lees may come by, but they won’t mind.”

“Right,” said Lizzie, already heading for the stairs to pack up her children. 

She’d chosen this life. She had. But now, with her husband half-dead and her children’s home not safe she couldn’t say if she’d make the same choice again. 

~~~

He smelled her before he saw her: lilies and roses, spring smells, flower smells. Soft and delicate, the way she was. Sturdy and ever-returning, just like her. She smelled like life. 

(She smelled like funeral wreaths.)

“Grace,” he mumbled, not willing to open his eyes. If Tommy opened his eyes she would either be gone, and he would miss her, or she would be there, with him, and that… that was worse. “I’m here, Grace,” he said. “Like you asked. A small change, like you said.”

“I didn’t ask, Tom,” she said, and a cool hand cupped his cheek. 

Tommy pressed his hand over hers, holding her palm to his face, and opened his eyes. There she was- there she went. It was like looking through a fogged mirror, or a screen of tears. It was Grace, so recognizably Grace, but she was… vague, the way his memories of her were vague. He remembered her voice, remembered the color of her eyes, but ...where had her little freckles been, the ones he’s chased with kisses? Under her jaw on the left side, or the right?

“You told me,” he said, his voice rough. “You told me to turn the key and come home to you. You told me that it was a small thing. To die.”

She didn’t smile, but her eyes went soft. He knew that expression, had hungered for that expression. “Does that really sound like me?” she asked, her posh-girl voice lilting along with the music of her homeland. “Or does it sound like you? Poetic and full of morbid excuses?”

He smiled up at her, just as stupid and intrigued as he’d been back in the Garrison that very first day. “Fair enough,” he told her, catching her free hand in his. He was lying on his back in a broad, tall bed, and she was braced by his hip, her hair waving around her cheekbones and down to her shoulders, the way she’d looked when she’d lived in a shabby one-room flat and he’d been a bookie with plans. The world ended beyond the bed, just as it should. He didn’t know anything else, but he was clear on that. 

“Do you want to die, Tommy?” Grace asked, her fingers gripping his more tightly.

He looked away, uncomfortable and angry in his shame. It had been a long time since someone had managed to shame Tommy Shelby. ( _It had been a long time since someone had looked at him the wrong way.)_

“Everybody dies,” he said. “And I don’t believe the bollocks the Church tells lads who kill themselves, who can’t take the voices in their heads-”

“You have Charlie to live for,” said Grace, “And a little girl besides. They need you.”

“But- I could-”

“If you tell me about one more curse, I swear I’ll scream,” she said, one corner of her mouth tilting into a smug little smile. “You can’t blame curses for everything, Tom. You can choose, this time. Like you wanted your mother to do for you.”

“I never told you that,” said Tommy, tracing the dip of her upper lip with his index finger. 

“I’m a figment of your imagination,” she said, pressing her forehead to his. Her hair curtained them, and all he smelled was laundry soap and _her,_ and if this was heaven he wanted to die for sure. “I know what you know,” she added in a conspiratorial whisper. 

“Grace…”

It had never been lost on him that her name meant ‘unearned mercy.’ The irony had never been quite so exquisite. 

“I’m not giving you permission to die, Tommy Shelby. Not if you can help it. Not if you have a chance to be _happy.”_

Tommy sighed, and drew her down to lie beside him. He knew this, remembered this: the way her body fit against his, her head in the dip of his shoulder and the way her thigh crossed over his. 

“I… I think it’s that I don’t know how to be happy,” he said finally. “But this isn’t what I want to talk about with you, it’s-”

“You can learn,” said Grace, her fingers tracing a line down his breastbone to his ribs. “You can run odds in your head, bookmaker lad, don’t tell me you can’t learn this too.”

“I miss you,” Tommy whispered, fisting his hand in her hair and pressing her face to his neck, reveling in the regular puffs of damp, warm breath that feathered over his skin. 

“So miss me,” said Grace, “And go on living.”

~~~

“Are you alright?” Curly asked, hovering over Charlie, his gaze flicking from Charlie’s face to his plastered leg. 

“I’m fucking fine, Curly,” said Charlie. “Have a seat yourself.”

Curly plopped down on a patch of grass near the fire, which he looked into with the kind of unfettered joy that Lizzie wished she could experience for herself. 

“I’m glad you came,” she told Charlie and Curly. 

Charlie ignored her. “How’s Tom?”

“Burning up with fever,” she said. “But the one time I roused him, he refused doctors. Kept shouting, “No hospitals!””

“Sounds ‘bout right,” said Charlie, taking a sip from his tin mug. “After the Irish nearly did him in, he broke himself out of hospital, told Curly here to get the horse liniment, and slept for three days on a narrowboat to London.”

Well. Lizzie supposed it was a positive thing that Tom had apparently survived this kind of behavior once before. 

“Are we going to fucking talk about it or not?” Arthur asked. “About who done in Tommy’s plan.”

“Weren’t me,” said Johnny Dogs. 

“We fucking know that,” said Arthur. “It’s gotta be Michael. All that shit about a new generation.”

“He doesn’t have any connection to Mosley,” said Lizzie. “What does he gain from this? Tommy wasn’t hurt until he got back home, and Michael couldn’t have planned for that.”

“Mickey, maybe,” said Arthur. “He was giving information about us to Jimmy McCavern, to the Chinese, to the UVF. They got the tip-off, and got our lads before we could get them.”

“Tommy said that Mosley didn’t know,” said Lizzie. “We have to believe that much. If Mosley didn’t know, then Jimmy McCavern didn’t either.

~~~

“Sergeant-Major? You alright, Tom?”

It smelled like kerosene smoke and unwashed bodies and deep-down mud that had never seen daylight. He was holding a board in his hand, a piece that they hadn’t used to shore up their tunnels, and there was a letter on it, already stained by the mud off his hands.

“George?” he asked, not quite trusting his voice. “George Haddock.”

“S’me, Sarge,” said the gangly boy from Wilmcote. “Present and accounted for.”

“No…” said Tommy, running his hand over his face. “I don’t think I’m alright, George.”

“Why not?” George braced himself against the dirt wall of the tunnel, his long legs drawn up so he could press the soles of his boots to the wall opposite. 

Tommy glanced up at the seventeen year old, then back down at the paper on his lap. “Because according to this,” he said. “You died this morning.”

Haddock’s ghost didn’t seem to find that problematic. “Died of what, then?”

Tommy closed his eyes and flipped the letter over. The front was a type-form, a generic “so sorry your son died for a nameless cause” that was hurriedly signed by any officer not in the trenches. Tommy was writing on the back, a letter to the mum that Haddock had spent so many evenings missing. He was trying to explain- but how did he?

“You died of me,” he said. After a deep breath he was able to meet the lad’s eyes. “You died because of me.”

“What happened?” He was tapping his fingers on his knees. He always did that, always fidgeted, even after eighteen hours of hauling spoil-buckets backwards on his belly. 

“You wouldn’t come back down,” said Tom, tipping his head back to rest it against the dirt wall of the tunnel. They were in an older section, a drier section, and they were supposed to be sleeping- well, _he_ was supposed to be sleeping. 

“Major Vale- fuck, Haddock, why wouldn’t you come back in the tunnel? Why wouldn’t you climb down the fucking shaft when I told you; you wouldn’t only had to wait until that fucking prick rode by, but you wouldn’t fucking listen to me!”

(An echo, up across the years: _nobody fucking listens to me!_ And just like that he knew this was only another dream, too, another nightmare of loss and guilt and German shovels.)

Tommy cleared his throat, the hard-packed soil around them swallowing the sound, but didn’t open his eyes. “Desertion,” he said roughly. “Abandoned your post. They did it right there- fucking… fucking tribunal, guilty sentence.”

He laughed roughly, humorlessly, the chuckle more an exhalation of exhaustion and despair than any actual sound. “Forty five minutes. Trial, sentence, and execution.”

When he opened his eyes, Haddock- or Haddock’s ghost, or his own insanity- looked uncharacteristically serious. “They didn’t- they didn’t make you-”

“Infantrymen. Firing squad,” said Tommy. “Seven men. Fucking… biblical.”

“Sergeant-”

“What the fuck was I supposed to do, Haddock? Sit down here, waiting to hear the order?”

“You didn’t leave me.” He didn’t phrase it as a question. 

“I gave the fucking order. Sun coming up behind you, blindfold over your eyes, tears on everybody’s fucking faces. I said ‘fire’.”

“I’m glad it was you,” said Haddock. “Sarge, I’m glad it was you. You didn’t- didn’t leave me alone, up there.”

“Yeah? Yeah, you’re so fucking glad it was me? Then what the fuck do I tell your mum, huh? The letter says you died in action. Morale’s too fucking low to tell the homefront that we’re killing our own men, now. They might not send us any more.” The last sentence was hissed with all the humor of a noose, snaking it way over the gallows.

Haddock shrugged. “Tell her the truth.”

Tommy choked on words. How- he’d just told him; he wasn’t going to tell some old mum that her son-

“That I wasn’t alone. That the sun was rising, and it was a pretty day.”

Tommy took several slow breaths through his nose, trying to remember what it felt like to sleep at home, in his bed, with the window cracked and a breeze on his face. 

“This isn’t real,” he said eventually. “None of it is.”

“I was,” said Haddock. “I was real. You’re real.”

“Doesn’t matter,” said Tommy, shaking his head. “Doesn’t fucking matter.”

“What did they do to us over here, Sarge?” Haddock asked. 

“I don’t know. Why would I fucking know. It’s… they say it’s the noise. That the shelling knocks our brains around inside our skulls. The doctors even say that, when we get back. But you won’t,” he added, bitterness falling like curses from his lips. “You fucking won’t. But when the rest of us get back, some government doctor is going to try to say that the shakes, and the fucking stupors, they’re an inner-ear problem. From the shelling.”

“We don’t- we usually don’t hear all that much, down here,” said Haddock. 

“I know. Just the fucking shovels.”

“So what happens to you?” Haddock asked, turning to the side so he could straighten his legs all the way. “When you go home, and the war’s over. What happens to you?”

Tommy glanced at the letter, and then over at the boy who he’d never see again. “I started another war. And never stopped fighting it.”

~~~

They were sitting around another campfire, another day’s drive towards Black Hill and the Boswell clan.

“You didn’t see the way she looked at Mosley during the ballet,” said Lizzie, burrowing deeper into the heavy wool blanket that she’d wrapped around her shoulders. There wasn’t any snow on the ground, but it was December, and the wind smelled like a copper cup: clear, icy cold, and laden with snow. It wouldn’t be long now. “Gina knew him.”

“She’s doing all that shit for Michael,” said Arthur. “What would she know of Mosley? How much did Michael even know about Tommy’s plan?”

“He wasn’t in the room when Tom told us,” said Charlie. “Just us three and Aberama.”

“It coulda been him. Aberama,” said Arthur. “He asked a lot of questions.”

“You’re fucking mad,” said Johnny. “Then why’d he get stabbed?”

“I don’t fucking know!” said Arthur, standing up so quickly his low stool flipped. “This is what we need Tom for!”

Lizzie hadn’t been a praying girl since she’d grown tits. Church was a warm place to go on a Sunday, and a nice place to hold a wedding. But since Tommy hadn’t opened those cold blue eyes in more than a day, she was praying now. 

_Let him live,_ she asked the moon. _Let him_ want _to live,_ she plead to the stars.

~~~

It was someone else’s turn to ask if their world was real. 

“Are you really here?” Barney asked, peering through the bars of his asylum cage at Tommy. This time, though, they were both in their battered khaki uniforms, and both caked with mud. Tommy wondered what he’d see if he looked in the mirror: a sharper jaw, a leaner frame, fewer scars? Or was he as battered on the outside as he felt on the inside?

“Does it fucking matter?” he asked, feeling around in his pocket for smokes and matches. When he pulled them out it was a packet of Three Sisters, the fucking army-issue cigarettes they’d all smoked and traded and jonesed for between distribution days. 

Barney smiled. “Guess not, Tom, guess not. Just glad it’s not the warden again, I hate those dreams.”

Tommy didn’t ask what the warden did. He didn’t need to know, he couldn’t know. Couldn’t carry that. 

“Why are you in here?” Tommy asked, interested to see if Barney could remember. 

“I killed a man, Tom. I don’t remember it, but they say I done it.”

_It could have been Danny Whizzbang in here,_ Tommy thought. _It coulda been me._

“You did,” he agreed, taking a long drag of the thin cigarette, enjoying the burn in his throat. 

“What did- what did they do to us, Sarge?” Barney whispered. 

“They filed us down into weapons,” said Tommy, holding onto the butt of his cigarette until the flame burned at his fingers. “They filed us down, single-use tools, yeah? And then they sent us home. No jobs, no help, just- parades, and saying that everything was going to be okay. And maybe it should’ve been. Everyone else got on with it.”

Barney looked doubtful, and had started to subtly rock himself, backwards and forwards, backwards and forwards. 

“Now I’ve got a question for you,” Tommy said, lighting another cigarette and passing it through the iron bars to his former comrade. “Why... I’ve been up nights trying to figure out why you wanted to fucking live. _Why,_ Barney, how could you live like this, live like this for _ten fucking years,_ and not want to die. I have everything, I’ve got everything to live for, and I- I can’t-”

He swallowed hard, his heart thundering. 

Barney shrugged uncomfortably, and took a drag of his cigarette with shaking fingers. “I dunno,” he said. “I guess-I always thought things might get better.”

“Might get better,” Tommy repeated, nodding slowly. “Better, huh. Maybe that’s my problem- I’ve fucking got everything, everything I ever thought I wanted; it can’t get any better. I’m an MP, being a Cabinet member doesn’t fucking really change anything, people already take me seriously, I have power, no police in Parliament- maybe that’s it. Nothing else for me to gain, and you-”

Tommy pointed at Barney, and his hand was trembling, too. “You have _everything_ to gain. Anything would be better than this.”

“You must want- want something, Sarge,” said Barney, still rocking. “Must be something you want for yourself.”

“No, no, I’ve got everything. I’ve got _everything._ How did I not see this?”

“See what?”

“I even said it, said it to Churchill a couple days after I visited you. “I have three gardeners,” I told him. “Three men who have no ambition and are happier than I’ll ever be.””

“I don’t understand you, Tom,” said Barney, dropping his smoldering cigarette butt into the padded floor of his cell. Idly, Tommy hoped it didn’t light, because he had no idea how he’d get the man out of a burning cage. “But that’s okay. Seems like I don’t understand much. Crazy Barney, can’t understand.”

“It’s ambition. Ambition is- it’s the fucking death of contentment, of happiness. But what- I have _everything,_ ” he yelled. “I have fucking everything- don’t I?”

~~~

“How was he today Miss Lizzie?” Curly asked as Lizzie gathered wood for the evening fire. 

“He took some broth,” she said, hoping it would be enough. 

Curly’s round face lit up. “That’s good, that’s real good. That Tom, he only eats when he’s on the mend.”

“I hope you’re right,” said Lizzie. They’d been on the road for four days, and Tom’s fever still hadn’t broken. The wound was red and puffy, but she didn’t see any sign of pus or obvious infection. Johnny had suggested that maybe he was already getting sick, and god knew that was possible. He didn’t sleep, didn’t eat, just drank opium and whiskey and schemed his life away. 

“Madame Boswell will fix him up when we get to Black Hill, you’ll see, she can fix anything,” Curly said. 

“Helps that the last time he saw Mother Boswell he gave her a bloody great sapphire,” said Johnny, dragging back water buckets. Charles was “grooming” the huge draft horse that towed their vardo, and Ruby was contently following her brother, a curry comb looking massive in her little hand. 

Arthur built the fire, Johnny fetched a sack of potatoes from beneath his wagon, and Charlie began to pluck the chickens they’d bought from a roadside farm. Even this far from Birmingham, the Shelby name held sway. They weren’t any closer to finding the person who’d betrayed Tommy, they didn’t know how to deal with Mosley, they didn’t know what was happening with Michael and Gina. 

“When we passed the telephone booth, I called Ada and Polly,” said Lizzie, unhooking Ruby’s little mittens from inside the wagon door and chasing her daughter down. “Here, baby, it’s cold. Let’s put these on, yeah?” 

With her fingers cozy and warm (and smelling strongly of horse; she was her father’s daughter) Ruby ran off after her brother, and Lizzie returned watchfully to the fire. 

“Ada says there hasn’t been anything in the papers about a plot, and there haven’t been any whisperings around London or the library. She thinks Mosley doesn’t know, or is hiding it well.”

“And Polly?”

“She only asked if Tom was still alive, and hung up on me.”

“Fucking Polly,” Arthur muttered. “Don’t know why she’s never been able to see Michael straight.”

“He’s her son,” said Lizzie, filling a tin cup with water and turning towards their caravan. “And she loves him. Watch the kids for me, Curly,” she called as she stepped into the round-topped wagon. “I’ll be right back.”

Tommy had shifted onto his side since they’d stopped for the night, and his hair was sticking to his forehead. Lizzie propped a hip on the high mattress and felt his face clinically: his fever seemed slightly lower than it had been this morning. 

“Tommy,” she said softly. “Tommy, have some water.”

One bloodshot eye opened and peered at her hazily. “Izzy,” he mumbled. “Laud’num.”

“It’s not time yet,” she said. “It’s not bedtime, you haven’t had any food.”

The eye reopened, and it was impressive that she could be glared at by a half-dead man with only one eye open. 

“Water,” she said, scooping up his head and sliding her thigh beneath his cheek, propping him up. “Have some.”

He took a few sips before turning his face away like an angry child, and she tidied the spilled droplets with her sleeve while talking about their day. “Ada’s well,” she said. “Hasn’t noticed any odd activity, but took a random cab to the hospital for her checkup. She says everything is going well with the baby, too.” 

She straightened his covers and picked up his hand, dry and callused and too-hot. “I called Frances, back at the house,” she added. “There was a message from Mosley, and she wouldn’t tell me what it was, and Tommy-” Lizzie’s voice cracked, and she leaned down to press her lips to the back of Tommy’s fight-thickened knuckles. “Tom, you’re going to have to trust me, you’re going to have to get well, because I don’t know what to do.”

_Because I miss you,_ she added silently. Because she wanted the _chance_ to start something with him, something more than fucking and quietly sharing a house and children. She wouldn’t have even that chance if Tommy gave up and died. 

“Live, you stubborn bastard,” she told him as she stood to go back outside. “C’mon, Tom. _Live._ ”

~~~

This time, Tom was back at the races. He could hear the sound of a crowd outside, smell dust and horses and sweat, and the light around him was filtered through white canvas. The heavy bar in front of him was empty and covered with abandoned glasses of whiskey and rum. A few lazy bees droned, and Tommy wondered if they could get drunk, sipping at the dregs the way they were. 

Campbell sat to his right, smoking a pipe and wearing that fucking awful black hat. 

“You know,” said Tommy, idly spinning his glass on the bartop. “I know I’ve done some fucking awful things in my life, but christ, I didn’t think any of them were bad enough to stick me with you.”

“Believe me, Mr. Shelby, this isn’t hell. Not yet, it isn’t.”

“Hmm.”

“You’ve been busy, gypsy boy,” said Campbell, cupping his pipe in his fingers. “An MP. How our hallowed halls have fallen.”

“Oh, I don’t know,” said Tommy. “Stealing, thieving, buying off the police. Not much I can do there that hasn’t already been done. A few things my colleagues enjoy that even I see as too fucking much. Children, Mr. Campbell. A club of men, the highest in our land, who smuggle children into Parliament for their pleasure.”

Campbell shrugged. “There’s a sin for every man,” he said. 

Tommy took a sip of his drink and remembered- Grace’s announcement of her pregnancy, the kisses he’d shared with May, the frantic look on Lizzie’s face when he’d come too late. He remembered his own desperation not to fail in his mission, the ride out to an empty grave, his triumph over Billy Kimber-

“What I can’t figure out,” he said at last, savoring a mouthful of summer-warm whiskey, “Is why I’m talking to _you._ The others made some kind of sense, some- fucking moral to the story. But you… I hated you. I still hate you.”

“How’s your aunt?” Campbell asked.

Tommy didn’t take the bait. He knew a distraction when he saw one, even if it was the product of his own fevered, deluded mind. There was something here that he was trying to tell himself- or maybe these really were ghosts, maybe he was cursed, but that didn’t _matter_ now, because there was a thought hovering just outside of his grasp. 

“Have you considered that this is what you get, Mr. Shelby?” Campbell asked. “That this is the price you pay for the love you received?”

“No, no that’s not it,” said Tom, distracted. Derby day had been the turning point. He hadn’t known it at the time, but this was the day on which the rest of his life hinged. Grace, and controlling the racetracks, the fucking money, it was all- it was all _here._ Everything had changed on Derby day: there was something he needed to know.”

“You only had her for two years, Mr. Shelby. And then life took her from you, because she was better than you.”

“Yeah yeah yeah,” Tommy mumbled, pushing up from his bar stool and wandering towards the flap of the box-seat club tent. 

The wagon, the grave, the admission to the world and himself that he loved Grace and she loved him back, the fate he hadn’t saved Lizzie from-

_Mr. Churchill has plans for you._

And then he woke up.

* * *

“I’m sorry I done it, Major”

We bandaged the livid face

And led him, ere the wan sun rose, 

To die his death of disgrace.

The bolt-heads locked to the cartridge;

The rifles steadied to rest

As cold stock nestled to colder cheek

And foresight lined on the breast.

“Fire!” called the Sergeant-Major

The muzzles flamed as he spoke:

And the shameless soul of a nameless man

Went up in cordite-smoke.

\-- _The Deserter,_ Gilbert Frankau, 1918


	2. Declaration of War

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _Previously on The Last War:_  
>  After Alfie Solomons put a bullet in Tommy’s shoulder to prevent our favorite anti-hero putting a bullet in his own head, Lizzie takes Tommy, the children, and the Tommy Loyalists on the road in Romani vardos. Tommy has succumbed to a fever and is hallucinating ghosts from his past _a la_ Charles Dickens. Meanwhile, the Tommy Loyalists aren’t any closer to finding out who betrayed Tommy

####  “The loneliest moment in someone’s life is when they are watching their whole world fall apart, and all they can do is stare blankly.” 

####  \--F. Scott Fitzgerald

* * *

It was dark and warm inside Madame Boswell’s vardo. The red walls reflected back the light of her kerosene lamps, and if not for the smell of the dried herbs that hung overhead, the small space could have been mistaken for a womb. 

“The last time you came to see me, your wife had just died. You were lost, and the stone you brought me was cursed. And now you have come to me again, and you seem as lost as you ever were.” Her eyes were dark and focused, predatory and all-seeing above the hook of her nose and the sun-weathered skin of her cheeks. 

Tommy nodded, and jammed his fingers even further into the pockets of his coat. His fever had broken the evening before, and now it seemed that he couldn’t get warm. He’d already taken the tea she’d poured for him, weak and bitter, and his hands were cold again. 

“I’m here to ask the same question,” he told her. 

“A curse?” 

Tommy nodded. “My grandfather, and my mother. They killed themselves. Suicide.”

She didn’t look away from him, and he wished she would. (Not that he would look away, either. Not when it would feel like an admission.) 

“And you?” Madame Boswell asked. 

Tommy took a deep breath, held it for a moment, and let it go in a long sigh. “And me.”

“Do you worry about yourself? Or the children, who dance outside?”

“Both,” said Tommy, scraping his hand over his face. He hadn’t shaved in almost a week, and when he’d caught a glimpse of himself in the wagon’s tiny mirror he’d been shocked by the amount of white in his beard. (He hadn’t seen himself scruffy since France. It felt like a lifetime ago.)

Madame Boswell poured more tea into his cup, and held it out towards him. “Drink,” she said. 

He took the cup, ignoring the way his hand shook. He’d been feverish. It was normal to feel this weak. He did as asked, swallowing the mouthful of lukewarm liquid gamely. 

“Think of your children,” she told him. “And swirl the leaves..”

He did, and inverted his cup onto the saucer before passing both to the woman across from him. 

She turned the cup to and fro, looking from him to the mysteries that clung inside. “You aren’t cursed,” she told him finally. “At least, not the way you think.”

A sick kind of hope flared in his chest. “Then-”

“The only curses you carry are the ones any man brings on himself,” she told him, setting the cup aside. “But there are blessings, too.”

“Our line. It isn’t cursed.”

“No,” she said, cocking her head to the side. “This disappoints you?”

“Yes,” he said, biting the inside of his cheek. “It’s- my sister told me the dreams, or visions, they were caused by the opium. I thought, maybe…”

“They could be,” she told him. “Dreams are, and they are not. Those are for you to decide.”

Tommy didn’t remember much of the last few days. He’d stayed in the bed, sweating and shivering, dreaming of things that he could barely recall, his memories a collection of amateurish impressionist paintings at best, and longings at worst. Remembering his dreams, his memories, it was like trying to catch a fish with his bare hands: a glint under the surface, the suggestion of movement, and then he’d reach and it was gone again. 

This was the second woman he respected, telling him to let go of the bottle. 

“I-” he couldn’t ask his doctor this, couldn’t bring himself to say the words. “The shakes. When I don’t take the opium, it’s. I need it.”

Madame Boswell nodded with a cruel gleam in her eye. “Everything has a price,” she said. “Consider that the price of painlessness will be pain. Days and days of pain.”

“Fuck,” Tommy muttered, reaching for his cigarette case out of desperate habit. “Fuck,” he said again, more loudly. 

“We can watch over you. Keep you quiet enough not to hurt yourself or others.”

“And what will the price for that be?” 

Madame Boswell smiled.

~~~

The first few snowflakes drifted down, eddying on the breeze, as Tommy wove his way between wagons and fires and tents on the way back to his vardo. There was a fire between his wagon and Arthur’s, and a grey stream of smoke curled from the little iron chimney of the caravan. The kids would be asleep by now; he’d kissed them goodnight before seeking out Madame Boswell, but Lizzie was nowhere to be seen. 

“It’s good to see you up, brother,” said Arthur, toasting him with a steaming tin mug. “Good to have you back.”

“Good to be back,” said Tommy, pulling his coat more tightly shut. He was so goddamn weak; a strong wind would knock him over like this, and according to Madame Boswell things would only get worse. “Have you seen Lizzie?”

“Headed that way, Tom,” said Charlie, pointing to the treeline. “Wanted water.”

Tom shook his head a little, and followed Charlie’s directions down the dark, sloping land and into the trees. It wasn’t right, the way they thought about Lizzie- it wasn’t right the way  _ he  _ thought about Lizzie, sometimes. Arthur and Charlie (or himself) would never let Ada walk off into the fucking trees at night, by her fucking self. They’d go with her, or Grace, or hell, even Polly, but that would be a tossup as to who was protecting whom: protecting Polly from whatever lurked in the dark, or protecting the darkness from Polly. 

But even now Lizzie existed in a strange blind spot for all of them: always there, always competent, always willing to do the right thing even when she hissed and spit over it. She was dependable, was his Lizzie, and now, shivering under dark trees while the foundations of his world trembled, Tommy wondered if he’d taken her a bit too much for granted. 

“Lizzie,” he called, voice low and eyes squinted, peering into shadows. He could hear the stream now, running fast with the rain and snowmelt of the north, and just as Tommy began to worry she replied. 

“Here, Tom,” she called, and then he could make out her silhouette, perched on a jut of mossy granite by the stream. A full bucket of water sat next to the lantern by her feet, and Tommy crossed to sit next to her. 

Lizzie had always been good at silence. She didn’t chatter to fill the space between them, and she didn’t give up her ground by letting quiet intimidate her. For a moment they sat, side by side, watching as fat snowflakes dissolved into the silvery running stream. 

“Thank you,” said Tommy after a while. Thanking a woman was always a safe place to start. “For getting the kids out, and taking care of me. I’m-” 

_ I’m sorry,  _ was on the tip of his tongue, but he couldn’t give her that, not even if he meant it. It would be too much like an admission of guilt. 

“Arthur told me that you told the family I couldn’t come to the meeting because of Charles’ violin concert,” she said finally. She still hadn’t turned to look at him. “But you and I both know I was home with the kids.”

“Lizzie-”

“I asked you to let me in, Tom,” she said quietly. She didn’t sound sad, or angry. Just resigned. “To let me into your head. I know you’ll always have secrets, but this- you kept  _ this  _ from me, and look where we are now.”

Lizzie fell quiet, pulling the fur collar of her coat more tightly around her face. She looked like she belonged in the camp- she looked like she could belong anywhere, really. Tonight she had on soft trousers that peeked out from beneath her skirts, her long wool coat, and another knitted shawl over that. Gold balls shone at her ears, and her face was devoid of the colored makeup he was now accustomed to seeing there. 

When he didn’t say anything, she sighed and turned her face from him. 

“You kept me out of that meeting on purpose. You’re afraid I’m going to turn into another Linda, that I’ll sit there and-”

“Lizzie,” he said, wishing she’d stop talking, wishing that everything had gone differently. “I was fucking scared for you, alright? I was fucking scared, and I wanted you safe at home away from Jimmy McCavern and fucking Barney and- I couldn’t think of what I had to do if you were around.

“I had to kill a man,” he said abruptly. (He’d killed so many men.) “Mickey. At the Garrison. That day, right after the family meeting. He’d been selling information to the UVF, and the Chinese, and I swear to god Lizzie, my hand started shaking like a normal man’s. His brains on the ceiling, and my fingers going like a leaf. I just-”

“You want to feel nice things,” she repeated quietly, turning enough that he could see her in profile again. 

It was the worst thing she’d said to him. Worse than wanting to leave, worse than asking why he was late in coming to save her.  _ I could see it in your face,  _ she’d said.  _ You do nice things, because you can afford to do them.  _

“You’re one of my nice things,” he told her. ( _ Mine, Lizzie. My property. _ ) “I like - fuck. I like coming home to you and the kids, and everything’s clean, and it smells nice, and you’ll smile at me over Ruby’s head, or show me Charles’ letters, and it’s- it’s-”

_ He never had the fucking words. Never when it mattered; emotion was the death of oratory. _

“You fucked up, Tom,” she said, voice still even. 

“Yeah,” he said, fumbling for his cigarettes. “I did.”

“What I don’t understand,” she said slowly, as he passed her a cigarette, “Is if we’re your nice things, why the fuck are you so eager to get away from us. Your friend Alfie found you standing out in the barley field with your gun to your fucking head. You scare Charles, Ruby is desperate for you to love her, and I don’t- I can’t stand by and let these children watch you kill yourself.”

The breeze had gone still, but a shiver still tracked down Tommy’s spine. “Leaving again, are we?”

For the first time since he’d found her, Lizzie looked at him straight on. “You tell me.”

He rested his forehead to hers, a press of skin to skin, just for a moment. “Madame Boswell said it’s not a curse. The- my mother, and the fucking… ghosts.”

Lizzie looked at him the way she might look at a street-corner monkey, banging away at its cymbals. “You can’t blame everything that happens on a curse,” she told him, pulling away and taking a drag on her cigarette. 

“Yeah, well.”

“It’s the fucking opium,” she said eventually, tipping her head back to blow a stream of curling, dancing smoke up into the snow. “You know that.”

“About that,” he said, clearing his throat. “I think you should take the kids back to Arrow House. It should be safe enough. If Mosely knows, he’s not the type to go after a man’s wife.”

“Such a gentleman, isn’t he? Gypsies and Jews, but don’t touch the ladies,” she said, her words bitter.

“You have to-”

“Don’t fucking say it,” she said, interrupting him and getting to her feet. “Don’t fucking tell me to trust you.”

He’d wondered, once. Wondered what it would take to make Lizzie stop loving him. He’d stopped her marriage to John, had let her get raped on his watch, cut off her relationship with Angel, and lied to her over and over and over. And always, whenever she looked his way, hope clung to her like mist to a field. She was a survivor, his Lizzie, and what faith she had had survived along with her. 

It was terrible, to think he might have killed that unbreakable thing. To have taken everything from Lizzie, and that much more besides. 

“Take Charles and Ruby and go home,” he told her. “I’ll be back in a week or so.”

“Why?” she was standing in front of him, her feet shoulder-width apart in her sturdy riding boots, her coat wrapped around her like it could hold all her dignity inside. “So you can scheme without me? What’s the plan, Tommy?”

“To stop the fucking opium!” he yelled, unable to stop himself though he  _ knew  _ she didn’t deserve it. “To stop taking the fucking opium, where the kids won’t have to see their fucking dad the way I saw my fucking mum. Is that what you wanted to know, Lizzie? Eh?”

Nothing about her softened, and he admired her all the more for it. Women grew tough in Birmingham. 

“Yes,” she said civilly. “That’s what I wanted.”

“Madame Boswell said- it won’t be pretty. “The cost of painlessness will be days of pain,” is what she said to me.”

“I could stay,” said Lizzie, sitting back down and leaning a bit of her weight against him, sharing her warmth. “Send the kids back with Charlie and Curly, let them have a grand adventure.”

“They’ve been shaken up enough,” he said. “Polly’s gone, and Arthur’s a wreck, and Ada’s dealing with the baby, and Younger’s death… I need to know what’s happening,” he said. “I’ll call, or have Johnny Dogs call. Check in with you.”

“This is what you want. Me to go, to see… whatever I can about the company.”

“You’re on the board,” he said. “They’ll give you status updates, if you ask.”

Lizzie went quiet again, watching the increasing snow fall down. “Alright,” she said, exhaustion coloring her voice with shadows. “The children and I will leave in the morning.”

“Thank you,” he told her again. 

She hadn’t said she’d trust him. She hadn’t even said if she would stay. But it was more than he’d had before, and- fuck. He couldn’t fucking imagine what he’d do if she left now, when the world was crumbling apart and nothing was as it should be. 

She’d always been there for him, his Lizzie. She always had. Selfishly, he hoped she could hang on a little longer. Just for this one last war. 

~~~

Linda’s Quaker friends had an atlas, she’d said. A huge desktop book filled with maps and pictures of far away lands. In India, at the opposite end of the Empire, a long-ago ruler had built a beautiful palace for his dying wife. Linda said it was all impossible shapes in shining white marble, and in front of it stretched a long, clear pool. All of that effort, so that his wife would be remembered forever. 

The British Midlands were a bit short on shining white marble, but they had endless supplies of red brick. It seemed like miles of it had been used to build Arrow House: another husband’s monument to another dead wife. 

Frances had the lights on when Johnny Dogs brought the horse to a gentle stop in front of the front door. Charles threw the half-door of the wagon open and slid down from the vardo before it had quite stopped moving, crowing, “We’re home, we’re home!” at the top of his little lungs. 

Ruby was drowsing against Lizzie’s shoulder, tired out from her adventure and the gentle rocking of the caravan.

“Charles,” Lizzie called, as he wrestled with the heavy brass doorknob of the old front door. “Charles, wait for me, please.”

“I’ll head ‘round the back, marm,” said Johnny, already cueing the tired horse into a shuffling walk. 

“Thank you,” Lizzie, called, balancing her daughter on one hip and opening the door for Charles with the other. Soon Ruby would be too big to be carried while she slept, too aware of her own autonomy to want these soft cuddles and kisses to tangled hair. 

Charles tore off up the stairs, charging ahead to check on his horses and books and the toad he’d captured and placed carefully in an old pickle jar, complete with leaves and rocks and twigs. Lizzie followed behind, happy to be back in Arrow House. It was familiar and safe- as safe as anywhere connected to Tommy could be- and she’d grown used to it. 

Lizzie was used to keeping her eyes from walls, now. Knew which spots held paintings of Tommy, or pictures of the children. (And which swaths of the walls still stood in memorial to Grace, the woman he’d actually loved.) It wasn’t any active resentment that kept her from looking on the face of the woman who’d had everything, it was simply habit. This was Lizzie’s place, now. 

Harriett was in Charles’ bedroom, trying to coax him into a bath. Knowing full well that his nanny had the situation well in hand, Lizzie passed by on the way to the nursery where Ruby still slept. Alice was waiting, her grey-streaked hair pulled neatly back in a low knot. 

“Would you like me to help wash her, ma’am?” she asked, her soft burr more reassuring than it should be. (It wasn’t Lizzie who Alice had been hired to soothe.) 

“Let her sleep,” said Lizzie, laying her sleeping girl down on the little railed cot. “She needs it. Sheets can be washed.”

“That they can be,” said Alice, bending to unbuckle one of Ruby’s shoes, and then the other. 

“How have things been, since we’ve been away?” asked Lizzie, propping herself against the pretty white dresser that was scattered with soft hair brushes and a selection of soft toys. 

“Quiet,” said Alice with a smile, carefully unbuttoning Ruby’s little coat. Her daughter’s eyelashes flickered, but she didn’t quiet wake, still hanging onto that baby-ability to trustingly sleep through motion and manipulation. “I missed the little mister and miss.”

“They had a grand adventure,” said Lizzie. As a child she’d dreamed of such things; of leaving Birmingham and wandering far, far away. She’d imagined herself on a big grey horse, one that could chase off those who’d harm her and who could carry her wherever she wished to go. It wasn’t only a dream for her children, now. (And they didn’t have the same reasons to run that Lizzie had.)

“Any strange visitors, or people hanging up the telephone?”

“Gotten into trouble then, has Mr. Shelby?” Alice asked, her eyes downturned as she laid a soft knit blanket over Ruby’s sleeping form. 

“Yes,” said Lizzie. There wasn’t any use in denying it. The servants knew who they worked for, just like Lizzie did. 

“No, nothing strange happening. Frances took a few messages.”

“I know,” said Lizzie, shifting to the doorway as Alice turned down the light. “She wouldn’t tell me what they were.”

Alice pursed her lips, glancing from Lizzie to the door and back again. “She’s loyal,” she said after a moment. “It’s hard to find fault with that.”

“I can,” said Lizzie, but there wasn’t any true resentment in her tone. “My housekeeper knows more about my husband’s business than I do.”

“Oh, the servants always know,” said Alice. “Nothing unusual about that. But I ken what you mean.”

“Yes,” said Lizzie, padding out into the hall as Alice cracked the nursery door behind them. “Thank you.”

Her body was tired, and Lizzie knew she should wash and go to bed. She’d slept badly over the last ten or so days, worried about Tommy’s illness and uncomfortable on the pallet with a child on either side. Despite her exhaustion, Lizzie was too… not anxious, exactly, but too wound up for sleep quite yet. She rinsed, slipped into a warm flannel nightdress, quilted dressing down, and heavy knit socks, and padded down the hall from their bedroom to her sitting room. 

No fire had been lit, and the air was cold this late in the season. A pile of mail had been placed on her desk, just as she’d expected, and Lizzie clicked on one of her delicate glass lamps before sorting through it. 

They’d received several invitations to social gatherings, a few from their neighbors here in Arrow House, but most from Tommy’s allies in Parliament. It didn’t matter that the Shelbys, to a man (and woman) never went out and about in high society gatherings. The invitations came anyway. 

Lizzie set those aside, and looked over the status of her household accounts for November. Coal use was up, and the price of wood and peat had increased for the fires that were laid in the nursery and schoolroom. It didn’t matter- even after the crash Tommy could afford to keep them all in peat fires for the foreseeable future. It was important to Lizzie: doctors had begun to agree that coal smoke was unhealthsome for developing lungs, and Lizzie agreed. She’d seen the chimney sweep lads; she’d seen the mining boys from the north. They didn’t last long. 

Linda had written. Lizzie didn’t have the energy to open it. 

This was what she had, then. A cold room that was her very own, where the only art that hung on the walls were pieces that she’d picked herself. Invitations and household accounts, and the rearing of children. 

“You stop it,” she chided herself, setting the mail aside and turning off the lamp again.  _ This is everything, everything you ever wanted, and you know it.  _ She’d never  _ have  _ to be cold again; never wake up to find ice formed over in her washbasin. She’d never be hungry unless she wanted to be, never wear thrice-turned dresses. Here she was: in a house with a family of her own, all her dreams in one pastoral package.

“And none of the rest, either,” she reminded herself as she headed down the stairs, across the foyer, and into Tommy’s study. (With no exceptions but  _ him,  _ the one for whom all exceptions had always applied.)

There was a stack of mail on Tommy’s desk, too. Lizzie looked at it, worrying her lip like a naughty child waiting for her punishment to be set by the schoolmaster. 

Whiskey gleamed in the crystal decanter over on the sideboard, and Lizzie crossed and poured a finger for herself. Drink in hand, she turned back to the desk. 

Tom had said that he needed to know what was going on. He’d told her that if she asked, Shelby Company Limited would update her as to their financial status. 

If she opened the mail, she wouldn’t have to ask. 

She took a long gulp of whiskey, all smoke and long-gone sunshine, refilled her glass, and crossed around behind the desk. It was warmer in here, evidence that at some point the fire had been lit, and Lizzie didn’t want to think about that. Men were more important here, they were more important out there; they were more important the world over. No use whinging about it. 

The top envelope was unaddressed and unsealed. Inside Lizzie found four slips of paper, each filled out in Frances’ neat hand. These were the messages, then, the ones she wouldn’t tell Lizzie. 

The first was simple- Mr. Greene of the company board would like to discuss Polly Gray’s resignation. 

The second was from a solicitor, informing Tommy that Linda had requested a divorce from Arthur on grounds of abuse, and Tommy would need to testify before the court. 

The third was from Polly, with no message attached. 

And the fourth was from Mosley. He’d called a day ago, asking if the rally-turned-riot had been enough to send Tommy running from their new party. 

“Fat lot you know,” Lizzie mumbled. 

Underneath the phone messages was more mail. Rent for Tommy’s London flat was coming due, his assistant from Parliament had written a Christmas card, and-

“Fuck,” Lizzie said, staring down at the heavy, monogrammed paper in her hand.  _ Fuck. _

She called Polly’s big house first, the one she’d shared with Michael for a time. The phone rang and rang, and Lizzie glanced at the clock- quarter of twelve. 

Lizzie found Polly at her house in Watery Lane. It was always back to Watery Lane for the Shelbys, like swans returning year after year. 

“Pol, it’s me,” she said. 

“Lizzie-” 

“I know you resigned, Tommy told me, and I can’t - Michael is bringing a competency suit against Tommy. They’ve got a solicitor, a rich looking one from London, and Tommy needs to have character witnesses and a doctor’s statement and-”

“He fucking didn’t.”

“He did, I’ve the letter right here in front of me.”

“Fuck. I told them I wouldn’t choose sides. I raised Tommy, and Michael’s my son.”

“I know,” said Lizzie, reading the letter over again. The envelope had been franked three days ago in London, and the hearing was just under a fortnight away. 

“Men. Men and their fucking cocks,” muttered Polly. “You know he told me that he’d kill me? If I sided with Michael, and things went that way?”

“I’m sorry,” said Lizzie. It was a hollow apology: they both knew what kind of man Tommy was. 

“I don’t know if he could do it,” said Polly. And then, after a pause, “I don’t know if I want to find out.”

“He’ll need you,” said Lizzie, trying to keep her voice even; respectful. “You’ve always understood him best.”

“Lot of good that’s done me,” said Polly, bitterness falling from her voice like cold, hissing rain. 

“Please-” 

“I’ll think about it,” said Polly, and then she hung up. 

Tommy would be quite ill right now. She could take the car and get to him by morning, but if what he’d said was correct, he wouldn’t be in any fit state to understand what she had to tell him. Johnny Dogs would head back out to Black Hill in the morning, and he’d call her with an update about Tommy on Wednesday. If Tommy came home Saturday, that gave him five full days to prepare before the meeting. 

Lizzie opened the top drawer of the desk to find a clean piece of paper, and discovered paper clips, old envelopes with notes scribbled on them, a few lost cigarette butts, and two empty bottles of opium. 

She opened the next drawer. It had one empty bottle, a handful of mixed-caliber bullets, and another little brown bottle, this one full. 

He’d hidden the stuff everywhere, hadn’t he. Even if he did get off the dope while out in the wilderness with Polly’s gypsy tribe, he’d only come home to find this, all over again. 

She searched his office, top to bottom, then the parlor, then their bedroom, and found sixteen empty bottles, and seven with at least a little left in them. It was well after one in the morning when she finished, and finally exhausted, Lizzie fell into bed. The rest could wait.


	3. Armament

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _Previously on The Last War:_  
>  After his fever broke, Madame Boswell told Tommy that no, he’s not cursed, he’s just a dummy and an addict. He remains behind in the Boswell camp go through withdrawals from the opium he’s been guzzling, and Lizzie takes the kids back to Arrow House. Once there she goes through the mail to discover that Michael has brought a competency suit against Tommy in a bid to wrench control of Shelby Company Limited away from Tommy.

Johnny called on Wednesday, just after Charles’ violin lesson began. 

“What is that _noise,_ Lizzie, it sounds like you’re skinning cats in there.”

“Is Tom there?” she asked. “Put him on.”

“He, ah, he wasn’t up to the ride, this morning,” said Johnny. “But I’ll tell him you asked after him.”

“Are you still at Black Hill?” Lizzie asked, her fingers clamped around the telephone so tightly she could hear it creak.

“Yes-”

“That’s two long days’ ride back. Alright, I’ll bring the car up, should I?”

“What the fuck is going on, Lizzie?”

“Lawyers, Johnny. Expensive fucking lawyers, coming for Shelby Company Limited.”

“My god,” he breathed. “And Tommy’s lying here-”

“I know,” said Lizzie. “That’s why I need him well, Johnny, we need him home.”

“He wouldn’t get better any faster at home,” he said. “God’s truth, I wouldn’t trust him with you. The man’s mad, as crazy as that sniper he broke outta the bin. Raving, he is.”

_Fuck. Fuck! That wouldn’t help the hearing at all._

“Don’t you tell anyone else that, Johnny, do you hear me? Nobody can know Tommy is- was- like this.”

“Alright, but he’s already been seen by the whole fucking camp-”

“That won’t matter, the lawyers won’t hunt down the caravans. Does Madame Boswell- does she know when Tommy will be well?”

“It’s bad, Lizzie. She won’t say, but I think she’s worried.”

Well. That would solve all of Michael’s problems quite nicely, wouldn’t it? Tommy dead was Tommy out of the way for good.

“Two days,” she said. “Call me in two days, and if he’s any better, I’m driving there to get him. You can bring the wagon home.”

“Should I tell him-?”

“No, no. You’re right,” said Lizzie, closing her eyes and cupping her forehead with her palm. “He needs to get well. We can tell him after.”

She hung up, and sighed deeply. She’d made a few calls, and had more yet. A few days wouldn’t hurt, not at this point. Tommy alive was worth more than Tommy here in the house, but mostly dead.

Lizzie picked up the phone again. “London,” she told the operator.

~~~

“You have to eat, Tom,” said Lizzie, breaking the tense silence that had fallen between them. “The doctor comes in two days to look you over, and I’ve seen corpses with better color than you.”

Tommy worked his jaw from side to side, trying to diffuse the tension riding in his temples and the annoyance wanting to trip off his tongue. “Not hungry,” he said, looking back down at the papers. The pieces were coming together now, all the little threads he’d missed before, the signs he hadn’t noticed before he’d run out into the barley field with his gun to his head. It had been there. The warnings had been there. 

“Tom,” said Lizzie again, breaking his train of thought. 

“What?” he barked. “What is more important than this?” He gestured to his desk, covered in papers and legal documents and devoid of the little brown bottles of dope that had caused him so much grief. 

(It had been a week since he’d seen Grace. He hated her, and he missed her.)

“The doctor,” Lizzie repeated, her cheeks flushed. “You have to eat, to sleep. You can’t go on like this, you fucking can’t. You never could.”

Once, he had been. Getting old was one set of indignities after another, and he still wasn’t sure if it was better than the alternative. 

“What do you want me to do?” he asked. “Leave this? Get in the bed, have you sing me fucking lullabies, too? Join you at breakfast, one big happy family, eh?”

“Don’t make this about me,” said Lizzie, crossing her arms. 

She always straightened her spine that little bit more when they argued, and he had to wonder how any of them had ever overlooked her. She was steel, his Lizzie. Steel and retribution.

“This isn’t about me.” she continued. “This is about the doctor not taking one look at you and taking away your fucking company and giving it straight to Michael, because you couldn’t be bothered to eat a sandwhich, or drink something other than whiskey.”

“If you know what he’s looking for, why don’t you deal with this, then. I’ll read bedtime stories, and lounge by the fire, and you can sit here and-”

“Alright,” said Lizzie, crossing to stand beside him behind the desk. She bumped her hip with his, and he hated that he had to clench his abdominals to keep from wobbling. _Done it to yourself,_ he thought. _Nobody but you to blame. Always been the way of it._

“What do you want me to do, boss?”

Tommy raised an eyebrow at her, but she didn’t back down. “Can you still take dictation?” he asked. 

“With me fucking eyes shut,” she told him, a little glimmer of her younger self peeking through. Tommy had missed her, that Lizzie with a smile on her face and hope and trust in her eyes. 

He stepped out from behind the desk, gesturing grandly to his chair, and Lizzie pulled the typewriter closer to the edge of the desk. Tommy sat in across from her, watching at the fire flickered over her hair and the planes and hollows of her face. He’d known her for how many years, now? Since they were children. She’d been behind him in school, but she’d run with Ada’s crowd for a few years. And then he’d gone away to war, and she’d gone away inside herself the way women sometimes did, when fate and men made life a hell not fully worth living. 

“Ready?” he asked, enjoying the determined set of her mouth. 

“Ready,” she said, placing her fingers over the keys. 

“Right. ‘Dear Mr. Churchill. When we last spoke, you expressed interest’- you aren’t taking this down, Lizzie.”

She blinked at him, and for a moment it was like time had unspooled, and they were back in his office in Small Heath, and she was nothing but a secretary and he was nothing but a man with a broken heart and big fucking dreams. 

_(Ambition, dreams, there was something about that he was supposed to remember-)_

“Dear Mr. Churchill,” she began, slowly repeating what he’d said back to him. 

“You expressed interest in coming to dinner with my family. As the holidays approach I find myself hosting a small dinner in Warwickshire, here at my home. I’d be pleased to host you at seven of the clock, twelfth of December. Yours, Tom Shelby.”

“We’re hosting Winston Churchill for dinner,” said Lizzie, her fingers pausing over the keys. It was phrased like a statement, but he could hear the question in her voice. 

“Yeah,” said Tommy, all the antagonism and teasing from earlier gone. “The pieces are starting to come together.”

Her head snapped his direction, her eyes hot and direct. “You know who betrayed you,” she said. 

He raised a hand, as though it could stop her questions. “I think I know,” he said. Before she could ask, he added, “I need more time. When I know, I’ll tell you.”

She looked skeptical. “You’ll tell me.”

“Yes,” said Tommy, leaning towards her. “I’ll tell you.”

“Alright,” she said, pulling the sheet of Tommy’s crested paper from the typewriter and setting it on the blotter. “I’ll be too busy planning a last minute dinner for Members of Parliament to bother you about it anyway.”

Maybe she’d have more luck planning a party that he had.. Mosely hadn’t been impressed with the gathering Tommy had hosted for Lizzie’s birthday… a month ago. It felt like so much longer.

“I do think you should eat something,” she said as she headed for the door. “And have some tea, or water. Anything that’s not whiskey, really.”

“You offering to make me something?” He didn’t look away from the fire, didn’t change his relaxed sprawl in the deep leather chair one bit. He wondered if she’d scold him about the family dinner their cook had provided; the one he’d missed. He wondered if she’d tell him to cook something himself.

“What do you want?”

She’d asked the question like she expected it to be a trick, or a joke. 

He shrugged. “What’ve we got?”

It was so ...normal. Something that Tommy-who-wasn’t-him would ask his wife while inside their dank little terrace house after a long day at the BSA.

“Let’s find out,” she said, and walked out into the hall. It was always cool there, at the bottom of the sweeping stairs. He could feel the draft even as the door opened. 

Tommy followed Lizzie back past the stairs,down the hall, and into the kitchen. The fire had been banked, the dishes had been dried and put away, and the smell of cinnamon and cloves lingered on the air. 

“Do we have lemons?” he asked, perking up. 

“Probably,” said Lizzie, rummaging in a hanging wire basket of fruit. “Ah- yes. Two.”

“Slice one for me, will you,” said Tommy, opening and closing cabinets until he’d found what he wanted. The kitchen whiskey was cheaper; a working man’s drink, and when Tommy poured some in a saucepan it smelled like home.

“Tom,” said Lizzie patiently, in her the-children-are-driving-me-mad tone. “We’re here to find you anything- _anything-_ to put into your system that isn’t whiskey. And it’s the one thing you’ve gone for.”

“Hot toddies, Lizzie,” he said. “‘S good for us.”

Her stern expression faltered, and he knew he had her. He knew she savored a hot drink before bed, she always had, even when the drink was mostly boiled water waved over twice-used tea leaves. 

“Check the icebox,” he told her, pulling cinnamon sticks from the spice rack. “I’ll eat something, we’ll have a drink, and then up to bed. Alright?”

It shouldn’t be something he wanted this badly. He hadn’t lied when he told her that he had things to do; Michael and Gina’s plan had been an unforeseen spanner in the works, but now that he had her in the kitchen, wrapped in her fuzzy shawl, he wanted to keep her here with him. 

“We could do up eggs in the hole, or a bacon sandwich,” she said. “Rest’ll take too long.”

“Eggs,” said Tom. How long had it been? Since he’d moved from Polly’s. Least ten fucking years.

Lizzie unhooked a heavy frypan from overhead and lit a gas burner beneath it. A pat of butter went into the dark iron pan, and he watched as she absently tore a rough hole into a slice of bread with her fingertips. No ceremony tonight, not with her. 

Tommy drizzled honey into the saucepan with the warmed whiskey and watched as it curled and waved and melted into the liquor the way petrol shone over rain puddles. Next went in water, lemon juice, and a couple cloves, and then he was digging for mugs while he listened to bread and egg sizzle in Lizzie’s pan. 

“Here,” he said, passing her a mug that held a slice of lemon and the steaming amber-brown liquid that smelled like Tommy’s childhood. (He’d put more into her mug than his. He wouldn’t think about why.)

“Thanks,” she said, easily holding the mug in one hand as she plated the bread and eggs with the other. “And here’s you.”

He found a fork, and then they were sitting at the heavy kitchen table together, Lizzie sipping her drink while he soaked the bready corner of his toast in the yolk and tried to remember what food was for. 

They’d spent plenty of time alone over the years. He’d been fucking her for more than a decade, and she’d been his secretary for nearly three years. And then there’d been Ruby, and Lizzie had come to Arrow House, and they’d rubbed along together well enough. All that time, and it was rare for them to talk about something other than the children, or the state of his household and business. 

Maybe that was normal. Maybe all marriages ended up this way, with all the ground trod and everything familiar and routine. (Maybe their marriage had ended up there faster than most.)

“What did you want?” Tommy asked, breaking the silence when he finished his first slice of toast. “When you were a girl. What’d you dream about?”

Lizzie smiled over the rim of her mug. She was holding it nearly pressed to her lips, even when she wasn’t drinking, like she was enjoying it for its warmth and smell along with the taste. “I don’t know,” she said, one dimple flashing with her confused smile. “To be able to fly, probably.”

“C’mon,” said Tommy, cutting another corner off and dunking it in the runny yolk. He held it out to Lizzie, who looked surprised, but bent forward to take the bit of food from his fingers anyway. It gave him a rush of pleasure he hadn’t expected, and not in an entirely sexual way. She was here with him, talking to and humoring him. For at least a little while longer he could count her as an ally. 

_One more war. Just one more._

“You can tell me,” he said. “Me, I was going to be Mayor of Birmingham. That or a gypsy king. I hadn’t decided.”

“Oh really?” said Lizzie, rearranging her fingers to maximize the amount of skin she had touching the mug. He wondered if she was cold- if she’d been cold. He scooted a little closer to her, and was perversely pleased when she didn’t shift away. He’d always been one to push boundaries. Couldn’t fucking stop himself. 

“You’ve always had political ambitions, have you? Mayor, or king.”

“M.P. was too high, even for me,” said Tommy, sopping the last bit of bread around the plate. It had been… good. He did feel better, and probably he wouldn’t have to be dying to admit it. “Nobody in their right mind would elect a nothing boy from Birmingham who didn’t even have a birth certificate to his name.”

‘World’s lost its mind, then,” she teased. 

“It did that a long time ago,” said Tommy, standing and carrying his plate to the sink. “You can tell me. What was it you wanted?”

He looked over his shoulder to see her shifty shrug. “This,” she said quietly. “A big, clean house. A bed of my own, a real one. All the coal I wanted to burn. To not-”

She drained the rest of her toddy and set her mug on the table with a soft, hollow thud. 

“Want another?” Tommy asked. “We’ve still got half a lemon left.”

“I shouldn’t.” 

He poured whiskey into the pan anyway. “What else?” he said. “More than- you know, all that. The impossible stuff.”

She gave him a raised-eyebrow look that very eloquently said, _once that had all been impossible stuff._

Maybe that had been all she wanted. Maybe he’d been alone in dreaming of tophats and coconuts, and other equally impossible, unattainable things.

“I wanted to leave,” she said thoughtfully. “I’d lay on the little tick mattress and imagine a big grey horse, and I’d ride away. Mind you, I didn’t know how to ride. Never been up on one ‘til I married you.”

She was smiling a little at her own whimsy, and as Tommy poured the warm drink into her mug he half regretted asking. He should know this by now, he really should have learned his lesson. Everything he learned about her made her ...familiar, filled her with the kind of humanity that he’d seen in the 179th, digging tunnels down under the Germans. It was a foxhole brotherhood, and he wasn’t comfortable having Lizzie in there with him. 

Grace had been _safe._ Her parents had loved her, and then they’d died, the way parents normally did. She’d had steady employment, a posh accent, and a good name. Nobody could ask for more than that. She’d been- she’d been too good for him, his prize snatched out from under the nose of his betters. And she’d loved _him,_ a Watery Lane gypsy with French soil in his lungs and blood on his hands. _Him._

She’d deserved to be protected from the reality of his work, from the danger that he brought to her life, but she hadn’t had any... she was a normal woman, was Grace. There weren’t any landmines in her psyche to avoid, no hard-won scars that still hurt if he pressed against them. He’d been the fucked up one of the pair of them, and he still was with Lizzie, that much he was damn sure about, but some corner of him knew (and ignored) that Lizzie needed care from him in a different way than Grace did. 

(Not that he’d cared, not enough to follow through. Some part of him thought - had thought, did he still feel that way?- that if Grace didn’t have that from him, then Lizzie didn’t need it either.)

“What were you going to say earlier?” he asked, passing her the warm cup. She smiled gratefully, and Tommy let his fingers linger against hers, overlapping the warm ceramic. “When you were talking about going away.”

Lizzie shrugged. “Don’t remember.”

She was lying to him, and he’d let her have it. She was owed that much after all the times he’d lied to her. 

Silence fell over the kitchen again, and Tommy puttered around, doing the washing up and setting the frypan and pot off to the side to dry. He paid servants to deal with this. They could put them away in the morning. 

“I’d miss you,” said Lizzie abruptly. Tommy turned slowly from the sink, looking over his shoulder at her. 

“I would,” she continued, her jaw pressed forward the way it did when she was feeling stubborn. “But I’d raise those children, and I’d go on. I wanted you to know that, if-”

Tommy scuffed to toe of his too-expensive leather of his boots over the stone of the kitchen floor. “Good,” he said eventually, looking up to meet her eyes. “Those kids deserve a mum.”

“They deserve their father, too,” said Lizzie. 

Sometimes it was easy to forget that while he’d been fighting gravity and the Germans, Lizzie had been at home fighting her own private war with poverty and more men than he cared to count. Tonight wasn’t one of those times he forgot it. She was a veteran too, but of an entirely different war. 

“We all die sometime,” he said. “But I’m done trying to speed that up.”

Lizzie only raised one sleek, dark eyebrow at him. Fuck, no wonder he’d always been drawn to her. She’d let him do anything, _anything_ to her, and then she’d turn around and refuse to accept another one of his brush-offs and lies. 

“Fucking opium,” he muttered, almost embrarrassed for the first time in years. “Done with it.”

She kept watching him, her dark eyes focused and sphinx-like. 

“Look,” he said finally. “Before- it’s- I came home from the fucking war and just picked another one, eh? Billy Kimber, and the fucking- the Russians, and the Changrettas, and I just keep making it bigger; bigger fucking armies, bigger fucking stakes, yeah? And then I’m a fucking M.P, and I can’t be fucking king, and it doesn’t-”

Fuck. _Fuck!_

 _Ambition... is the death of contentment._ There it was, the thing he’d been trying to tell himself. 

“Maybe it was the noise,” he said, sliding his cigarette case from his pocket. Idly he noticed that his fingers weren’t shaking, and yeah, maybe Lizzie had been right about the food. “Maybe those fucking doctors were right. Gets into your head, and you can’t take the quiet. You’re just- waiting for the next round of shelling, the next whistle to blow you over the top. So I made me own wars. And then it got- there wasn’t anywhere else to go, eh?”

Lizzie hadn’t looked away from him, and fuck, it would have been easier to cut open his belly and let her read her future in his fucking entrails; he hated this, he never had the fucking words, escpecially with her, _never_ with her. 

“It’s- maybe some part of me realized that there wasn’t anything else to work for here, so I may as well be going back to-”

He didn’t need to finish the sentence. Grace hung in the air between them, as invisible as the wind, as solid as the side of a tank. 

“And that’s gone now,” he said, making his words strong, talking like he would in the Benches. “I’ve got the pieces now, Lizzie. I’ve got the scent.”

“Sounds good,” she said coolly, taking one last long gulp of her drink before setting it on the table and standing. “I’m glad for you. Goodnight.”

She walked away, silent in her thick wool socks, leaving a hint of her perfume lingering behind her. Tommy put her mug in the sink and grabbed his own, still mostly full of now-cold toddy. 

“Fuck,” he mumbled to himself again, and poured the bitterness down the sink.

* * *

> Am I alive and the rest
> 
> Dead, all dead? Sweet friends
> 
> With the sun they have journeyed west;
> 
> For me now night never ends, 
> 
> A night without rest.
> 
> \--Excerpt from “ _The Survivor Comes Home_ ” by Robert Graves


	4. First Clash

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _Previously on The Last War:_  
>  Tommy gets home from Detox Camp and begins prepping for the competency hearing. Lizzie harrasses him into eating something (gasp). Tommy and Lizzie spend the evening in the kitchen drinking hot toddies and talking: not about the children, not about the house, just… talking. Comfortable and easy.

Dinner had gone off well. Tommy had managed to put down more food than wine, his fellow M.P’s and their odd, twitchy wives had been polite enough, keeping to civil topics, and most of them had gone off home, chauffeured safely away by their paid fucking drivers. He hadn’t liked the way the women talked to Lizzie, and he hadn’t liked the way the men looked at her. If she noticed, she didn’t give him a sign. 

(Not that she would. She’d been a professional, and now she was a professional wife.)

Lizzie had begged Polly into a visit, telling her that Winston Churchill, Liberal MP, had heard about her and wanted to meet. Polly told Lizzie to fuck off, and he still didn’t know what Lizzie had said to get her to come. Polly had spent the evening entertaining everyone but Tommy, and her silence stung the way it always had. But it was her oldest and most effective weapon, and he’d let her keep it. 

“You aunt is quite the character,” said Churchill, standing behind Tommy as the last of their guests rolled down the drive. He’d lit one of those terrible cigars, and Tommy knew Frances would be dusting and mopping and buying even more flowers in the morning to try to chase away the smell. 

“That she is,” said Tommy, pushing the heavy old doors shut. “Brandy?” he asked. 

He knew Churchill had a weakness for it. Rumors and whispers multiplied in Parliament like bats, curling away in the daylight and winging through the halls as shadows grew. Apparently Churchill had nearly bankrupt himself in the market crash, and yet his purchases of cigars and brandy and lavish foods hadn’t slowed. 

“Of course,” said Churchill, following Tommy into his study. 

Tommy had already arranged his heavy, brass-studded leather chairs in front of the fire. A low wooden table stood between them, and on it rested the crystal decanter and delicate, wide-bowled glasses. He took the seat closest to his desk, and Churchill settled into the other, and Tommy poured the brandy. 

He didn’t like it much himself. Probably a good thing, according to Lizzie. 

“You had London worried when you disappeared after that riot,” said Churchill, leaning back in his chair. 

“You were concerned?”

“Oh, not me. You always return again. Gypsy magic, perhaps, or sheer persistence.”

“Took my family away for awhile. Just us, you know, before rushing around for the holidays.”

“Terrible time of year for a trip,” Churchill commented, puffing on his cigar with one hand while the other cradled the brandy glass. “Nasty weather; nothing growing.”

_ I see the green shoots of war growing up around his feet.  _

Tommy felt alive again, reveling in the thrill of the chase, and this was why he liked Churchill, even though the man had asked him to kill and kill.

“Oh, there’s always something to see,” said Tommy easily, matching Churchill’s tone.

“You’ve wandering in your blood. I suspect sometimes that this is why you cannot be content to run your company, or to vote your seat with the dispassion of a true orator. You’re like me, Mr. Shelby. You’re always looking for a fight.”

“Except when you stop them,” said Tommy, his voice still easy and friendly. “There’s a lot of time for a man to think, when he’s in a vardo rolling across the downs. Lot of time.”

“And what were you thinking about, with that sleepless, restless head?”

“Why Mosley still lives,” said Tom. “I couldn’t understand it at first, how he’d known. How my plan had failed. And then I came home to no messages, no distrust, and I realized he  _ didn’t  _ know. An outside party had known my plan, and came in to disrupt it.”

“Hmm.”

“Yes. So I made some calls- to family, first. Then through Small Heath, and then, finally, Mr. Churchill, to London.”

“I came through Birmingham on my way here,” said Churchill. “They talk about you like you’re a god, Mr. Shelby. Like I was walking in the footsteps of a king. But you don’t believe in gods, do you? Sometimes I wonder if you believe in kings.”

And around and around they went, like streetcorner tricksters asking those hopeful and foolish few to find the lady. Except instead of shuffling cards, they were riffling through power as they sat sipping brandy by the fireside. They were gentlemen. (At least, one of them was.)

“Did you hear about Colonel Younger?” Tommy asked, digging out a cigarette and striking a match, enjoying the brief flare and the smell of sulfur and phosphorus chloride. 

“Terrible,” said Churchill, not sounding like he found it terrible at all. 

“The men over in Intelligence called his death as assassination. IRA men, come to England to make a statement.”

“But you don’t think so,” said Churchill. “Of course you don’t. You see politics for what it is: conspiracies and lies. A great game, with many players.”

A game. A fucking game. Maybe you had to be rich, always rich, to see so many lives as nothing but pawns on a board. 

“I think he was killed because he was reporting on the Fascists, at my request,” said Tommy, remembering Ada’s face.  _ Anyone you touch. Which means anyone I touch. Which means anyone any of us fucking touch.  _

No, that wasn’t true. He should have told her. It was him, only him, the Black Hand in truth. 

“Intelligence knows it wasn’t them that killed him,” said Tommy. “And they know it wasn’t the IRA. They knew he was working with me, knew I’d been asking questions about Mosley. From their perspective, I may have been using my connection with Younger to pump Intelligence for information.”

“Like you pumped that Communist woman, what was her name?” asked Churchill, enjoying himself. 

Tommy suddenly wanted the man out from under his roof, but he was playing the long game, looking at the war and not the battles. Sacrifices must be made. 

( _ Just one more war. Last one, Tommy boy. Last one. _ )

“I believe intelligence needed someone to look into me,” said Tommy simply. “Do you know the name of the woman who manages the office of the Undersecretary of State? Because I do. Eleanor Keens, formerly Grade. Sister to one Billy Grade, pro-footballer turned singer.”

“And now I hear he’s doing… other things,” said Churchill. 

Tommy wondered if there was a single person in London who wasn’t on someone’s payroll. Maybe one lone soul, a little old granny closed up in her rooms who had no idea that all around her wove a web of mystery and money and schemes. He wondered if she was happy. (He wondered if he ever could be.)

“He was,” said Tommy. “So when the Home Office needed someone to look into my family’s company, they asked Billy. A friend once told me that ‘big fucks small’, Mr. Churchill. Mr. Grade found someone bigger. He found the Home Office, and I think you found him.”

“Pure conjecture,” said Churchill, finishing his brandy with an air of satisfaction. Tommy poured him another. 

“My youngest brother worked with Mr. Grade. I suspect that he let something about my plan slip into places where it shouldn’t have been heard, and that plan got back to you.”

“Maybe you are mad,” said Churchill, swirling the brandy in his glass. 

“Oh, I’m not mad,” said Tommy, and some of his rage bled through. “I just watch what’s happening. I know firsthand you’ll interfere with the plans of your agents when it suits you. Down they go, and your schemes all the better for it. I suspect you realized how popular Mosley had become, how more and more of England are turning out to listen to him speak about the plight of the common man, and the natural superiority of the English. It’s a lovely tale, Mr. Churchill. It would be a shame if that cause had a martyr attached to it.

“Besides,” Tommy continues. “Who else could disassemble my plan while leaving no prints; no trace of their own crimes? Your efficiency was your failure, Mr. Churchill. Gangs are never so clean.”

“I suppose they aren’t,” said Churchill. “You know, Mosley won’t like it. You, fraternizing with the opposition of your new party.”

“I’ll take care of Mosley. I already would have, if you hadn’t interfered.”

“And so you’ll try again?”

“And so I’ll try again,” said Tommy, finally raising his glass to his lips. 

* * *

> **“I think a curse should rest on me- because I love this war. I know it's smashing and shattering the lives of thousands every moment — and yet — I can't help it — I enjoy every second of it.”**
> 
> **\--Winston Churchill, 1916, in a letter to a friend**

* * *

“We’re here,” said Lord Greenwood, “To determine the fiscal competency of Thomas Shelby, M.P. This is a preliminary hearing only, a presenting of evidence and testimony. If I find that there is just cause for a hearing, one will be scheduled in a court of law. If not, this matter will be thrown out, and considered closed by all parties and courts. Thank you for hosting us, Mr. Shelby,” he finished, nodding across the table at Tom. 

Michael glowered, and his weaselly lawyer scratched a note on the paper in front of him. 

“You’re very welcome,” said Tommy. “Glad you could make the drive out to Warwickshire.”

“Terrible time of year for this,” the judge agreed, shuffling through the folders in front of him. “Both of you have your legal council with you?”

“Yes,” said Michael. Tommy affirmed as well. 

“Excellent,” said Lord Greenwood. “Let’s have this matter wrapped up by tea,gentlemen, I’ve a home to get to. Plaintiff’s witnesses first. Defense closes.”

“Our witnesses are prepared to do their duty,” said Mr. Willis, Michael’s solicitor. He rose and opened the dining room door, and in walked Sister Nora Walls, former rectoress of the Saint Agatha’s Home for Orphaned Girls.

“Nice glasses,” Tommy commented as Sister Nora took a seat at the foot of the table, opposite Lord Greenwood. She glared at him, and then returned her focus to the judge. 

“Sister Nora, how long have you known Thomas Shelby?”

“We have communicated for nearly six years,” said Sister Nora, her narrow face pinched.

“And in that time, has he acted irrationally? Has he encouraged the spending of money in frivolous or illogical ways? Has he behaved recklessly in your presence, in a way that could have brought harm to himself or others?”

( _ There is god, and there are the Peaky Blinders. We’re much, much closer to hand than god. _ )

“Not initially,” said Sister Nora. “But two months ago he came to our facility quite early in the morning. He threatened my person, and the persons of my sisters, and withdrew all his funding.”

“Did he give any explanation for his actions?”

“Ian,” Tommy interrupted, addressing his solicitor without taking his eyes off Sister Nora. “Run to my office. There’s a blue folder in the bottom left hand drawer of my desk. Labeled St. Agatha’s. I believe we’ll find all the evidence we need.”

Sister Nora’s eyes narrowed. 

“Sir, he’s introducing evidence after the fact,” said Michael, leaning towards Lord Greenwood.

“As is his right as the defendant,” said the judge. “Mr. Stewart, the folder, if you please.”

Tommy’s solicitor returned with the folder, who passed it to the judge. Lord Greenwood flipped it open, and as he scanned the contents, his eyebrows slowly slid up towards his hairline. “Children,” he said. “The signed statements of girls. Bars of  _ soap?” _

“I was told it’s inadmissible,” said Sister Nora, her eyes flicking to Mr. Willis and back again. 

“Under the Children and Youths Act of 1908,” Mr. Stewart began, but Mr. Willis cut him off. 

“You would have to provide physical evidence that the behaviour of the charitable sisters was outside of reasonable discipline,” he said. “But I believe that is beyond the scope of this hearing.”

“Very likely,” said Lord Greenwood. 

“The sudden financial act to which Sister Nora previously referred was when Mr. Shelby removed both funding and the orphans from Sister Nora’s management,” said Mr. Stewart smoothly. 

“Seems explicable to me,” said the judge. “Mr. Shelby, you saw the girls?”

“Yes,” he said, his head slowly turning towards Sister Nora. “I did.”

“And there were visible signs of mistreatment?”

“Yes.”

“Fine. Next witness, Mr. Willis.”

Michael’s solicitor escorted Sister Nora to the door, and returned with… Lord Suckerby. Tommy nodded at his fellow member of Parliament.

“Lord Suckerby, do you have any reason to believe that Thomas Shelby is unfit to manage a private company, in which other parties hold shares and vested interests?” Lord Greenwood asked. 

“He’s unfit to be in an office of any kind,” Suckerby barked. 

“Have you witnessed him engaging in reckless behavior that could endanger himself or others?”

“He drinks like a fish, has hosted a parade of whores in a residence separate from that of his wife, and-” he said the last bit with relish, “- has been accused of  _ buying votes.” _

“Surely a matter for Parliament,” said Tommy’s solicitor. “Unless, of course, you think that an insane man is capable of negotiating for votes whilst also being incapable of running a company?”

“Agreed,” said Lord Greenwood. “Anything else, Lord Suckerby? Surely enjoying a drink and a woman is the sign of a healthy man, and not the other way around.”

“I’ve heard a few rumors about you,” said Tommy, slowly lighting a cigarette, and thinking of the dark brown folder that rested in the back of his safe. He’d have to call the  _ Times  _ in the morning. Maybe a deliver a package by special courier. He’d warned the man. He had. 

Suckerby glared. “He talks to himself,” he said. “I’ve seen that with my own eyes. Halls of Parliament, looking into an empty corner and muttering to himself.”

“Practicing speeches,” said Tommy smoothly. “I’d encourage my colleagues to consider what they’re saying before they choose to say it.”

“A very rational point,” boomed Lord Greenwood, making another point on the papers before him. “Suckerby, you’re excused.”

Tommy glanced at the clock, ticking merrily on the sideboard. It had been less than forty minutes since the hearting had begun. 

“We requested that Arthur Shelby testify,” said Michael, glancing from Tommy to the judge. “He refused to comply. I’d like to tell you what I’ve heard him say, in his stead.”

“Irregular,” said Greenwood. “But I’ll allow it. Briefly.”

“Arthur Shelby told me recently that he was worried about Tom- Mr. Shelby,” said Michael, his eyes flicking to Tommy and away again. “Arthur insinuated that Mr. Shelby was abusing pain medication, and not sleeping.”

Tommy shrugged. 

“Tommy believes in the power of dreams,” Michael said, louder now. “Going on about black cats, and how someone was going to betray him. He’s superstitious, he drinks nearly as much gin as he makes. He’s been hospitalized long-term, twice, for extensive violent injuries, he’s-”

“That’s enough, Mr. Gray,” said Lord Greenwood, interrupting. “Mr. Shelby? What do you have to say to this.”

Tommy had brought one lone, plain folder into the hearing with him. He’d sat attentively and easily through the arguments and testimony, and now he slid the folder towards Lord Greenwood. “I believe you’ll find what you need in there,” he said. “The first paper is a copy of the employment contract signed by Michael Gray eight years ago. The second is a copy of a telegram that I sent to him in Detroit, advising him to sell off Shelby Company Limited’s stock and assets. And the final paper details the value of our stocks in September, and their subsequent value in October.”

“My god,” Greenwood mumbled. 

“You see,” said Tommy, cocking his head in Michael’s direction. “What we have here isn’t a good-faith attempt to save the company or aid a failing relative. This suit was brought by Michael out of shame, and for his own gain. He’s nothing but a disgruntled employee, and I’m sorry for wasting your time.”

“Well,” said Lord Greenwood, after a few more moments of studying the documents before him. “I was going to suggest that we review the physicians’ affidavit from both parties, but frankly, I don’t see the need. I’m closing this case: Thomas Shelby is fully competent, and should seriously consider firing his.. Nephew?”

“Cousin,” said Tommy helpfully. 

“Be that as it may,” said Greenwood, signing off on one of the documents and passing it to Tommy and Michael’s solicitors for review. “I’d fire him.”

“I’m on the board,” said Michael, his face going red. 

Tommy didn’t comment. 

There were handshakes all around, and Tommy stepped out into the entryway to put an arm around Lizzie, who was tense and jittery, watching their unwanted guests depart. “Went fine,” he told her, absorbing her weight as she leaned into him. “Judge signed off.We’re in the clear. It’s alright.”

“It’s signed off on,” she said. “But it isn’t done.”

Tommy sighed, rubbing his palm up and down her arm. “No,” he said. “Not done.”

“What’s next?” Lizzie asked. 

“Family meeting. Let Frances know we won’t be home to dinner.”

“Where are we heading?” Lizzie asked as Michael stormed past them, his coat flapping. 

“Watery Lane.”

~~~

Why did men age so gracefully?

Women hit that period beyond the glow of youth, but well before the ravages of time, and suddenly they became- well- invisible. Not that Lizzie found that a bad thing; she’d spent too many years with people’s eyes following her as she passed, but- it just wasn’t  _ fair.  _

A week’s sleep, less whiskey, and several square meals. That’s what it took to have Tommy looking square and whole again, just as furious and vital as he was in his twenties, fresh back from the war. He was standing with his back to the fireplace of the little counting house kitchen, and even standing still he emanated power and energy, like a compressed spring that had yet to be released. It was like something inside Tommy was wound too tight, propelling him through life while the world liked it or not. 

His eyes, pale and cool, slid over her as a few more Shelbys trickled in the door and gathered, silently, around the table. Lizzie wanted to put her head down on the scarred old wood and close her eyes: she’d had a stiff neck and throbbing pain gathering at the base of her skull for two days, and it had finally blown into a full-on headache. She wondered if Polly still kept headache powder somewhere in this house. She wondered if Polly had forgiven her enough to share it. From Lizzie’s left Ada smiled sympathetically, nodding a little. 

Arthur sat beside Polly, who patted his thigh consolingly before turning her face away from Polly again. Charlie and Curly leaned against the back wall, Johnny Dogs was up on the counter, Finn was lounging, all gangly and self-important, on the other side of the table and they were only waiting on-

Gina and Michael walked in, Michael’s jaw already set and Gina’s heels clicking on the floor. 

“Have a seat,” said Tommy, jerking his chin towards the table. 

“Thanks, but we’ll stand,” said Gina, clinging to Michael’s arm a little tighter, her vowels twanging and voice too sweet.

It hadn’t been long since Lizzie had seen Gina- a month, maybe- but a month was a long time when a woman was carrying a baby. She still didn’t look any different, not even around the jaw or tits. 

“Fine,” said Tommy. “Welcome back, everyone. As most of you know, things have changed since our last family meeting.”

Polly snorted. 

“The… event, that I’d been planning with Oswald Mosley, ended in a riot, with Aberama Gold dead, and Mosley very much alive. We owe Polly our condolences. The funeral will be held tomorrow, in Warwickshire, with the burning of Aberama’s vardo.”

Polly turned her head even further away from Tommy, her profile proud and eyes wet. Lizzie thought they were too much alike, Tommy and Pol. Like flint and steel, always sparking off each other, each proud and haughty and smart. 

“I’ve made calls since the riots,” said Tommy. “And talked to some people. The only people who knew of my plan are in this room. The others are dead.”

The family looked around at each other, most of their gazes flicking from Arthur to Tommy to Johnny Dogs.

“So someone,” said Tommy slowly, “Betrayed me. Betrayed  _ us,  _ whether accidentally or on purpose. People are  _ dead.  _ Good men are dead, because someone couldn’t keep their mouth shut. 

“Which brings us to Item One on today’s agenda. As of this morning, Finn Shelby and Michael Gray are no longer on the payroll of Shelby Company Limited.”

“You’re fucking joking,” said Finn. 

“What? Tom!” said Arthur, talking over his younger brother.

Polly’s head snapped back towards Tommy, and if looks could kill he’d have been dead twice over. 

“The party that interfered with our plan heard it from Billy Grade. Billy Grade was kind enough to tell me where he’d gotten his information on the business of Shelby Company Limited.”

Finn’s face had gone white, leaving his face stark beneath the boyish freckles. “I didn’t-” he started, his voice thin, but Tommy kept talking. 

“Finn Shelby told him the plan,” he said. “In the employment contracts of Shelby Company Limited there exists a clause that states the dissemination of information which causes reputational or financial loss to the company or senior officers of said company is a fireable expense.”

“Tom, you  _ can’t,  _ said Polly, her cheeks flushed with color. 

Tommy ignored her, his gaze fixed somewhere on the back of the room, and Lizzie realized that this hurt him. The little brother he’d half raised, the one he’d looked after and chased in the street. He was firing him from his own company. Anyone else and they’d be dead. 

“I warned him,” said Tommy, still not looking at Finn. Finn had gone deep red, his fists were clenched at his sides, and angry tears were pooling in his eyes; furious, boyish tears that it would kill him to shed. Lizzie hurt for him, and Tom, and herself, and all the fucking Shelbys, because they’d never, in their wildest imaginings, thought it would come to this. 

They’d wanted legitimate racetrack licenses, once upon a time. Had wanted just a margin of respectability. Instead they’d all climbed so high that the oxygen was thin and nobody was around to hear them scream. 

Tommy pressed on. “Finn, you’ll have what any man has when he starts his own life: the love of your family, a little cash to get you going, and a strong back. Nobody can ask for more.”

“But-”

“Michael and Gina Gray are banned from company grounds as of the culmination of this meeting. Michael Gray has been removed from the board of Shelby Company Limited, his stock has been seized, and I cannot find it in myself to wish him well on future endeavors.”

Michael lunged into the room, and Gina tugged him back to her. “It’s fine,” she said, her painted lips uptilted in a smirk. “It’s better this way. We can go back to my family, start clean.”

“Furthermore,” said Tommy, drawing a heavy, folded envelope from the inside of his coat, “I have taken out an injunction against Michael and Gina Gray, banning either of them from using insider information about Shelby Company Limited’s workings and holdings to compete with, or cause financial harm to, Shelby Company Limited.”

Finally, for the first time since Tommy had begun to speak, he looked directly at Michael and Gina. “Which means, Mrs. Gray, you cannot take information about my suppliers, distributors factories, or assembly lines back to your family in America. I think the Ford family is doing well enough on its own, eh?”

Gina’s eyes glittered, and Lizzie could see the way her fingers were digging into Michael’s sleeve. “C’mon, honey,” she said. “Let’s go.” Her heels clicked, and a few seconds later the door slammed behind them.

It was perfect, in a way. Artistic symmetry: Michael had tried to use Tommy’s company to bring him down, and so Tommy was using the company to destroy the man who had once been seen as his heir. It was beautiful and devastating, and if Lizzie wasn’t so tired she might have applauded. 

“That brings us to Item Two,” Tommy went on, pushing ahead like the tide. “The board of Shelby Company Limited has been rearranged. We’re pleased to recognize our newest voting member Charlie Strong. He will be replacing Linda, as the board has voted to remove her from all company business. The board has already finalized the removal of Michael Gray, and will begin searching for a new accountant immediately. For the foreseeable future, the open position of Treasurer will remain unfilled.”

“Still think this is a fool’s errand,” muttered Charlie from the back. 

“You’re official!” whispered Curly, loudly. “A big man, just like Tom.”

“Yeah,” said Charlie, not taking his eyes off his nephew. “Just like Tom.”

“Look for a new treasurer, Tom,” said Polly, blowing a stream of smoke up towards the ceiling. 

He ignored her. 

Which brings us to Item Three: as reinstated Chairman of Shelby Company Limited, I suggest we begin investing in construction and increase car manufacture by 35% in the next three years. I’ve already applied for building permits, and hiring notices have gone out for crews.”

Arthur was slowly shaking his head, Finn was staring down at his boots, and Johnny’s Dog’s mouth was hanging open. “That’s what you wanna talk about now, Tom,” he said. “Construction? Business?”

Tommy sighed, his face losing that cold, distant look for the first time since the meeting had begun. “Just vote,” he said. 

“Aye,” said Lizzie, raising her hand. 

“I don’t know what you’re scheming about now, but aye,” said Ada. 

“Aye,” said Arthur, and it echoed around the room. (Including Johnny Dogs, who didn’t seem to realize that he  _ wasn’t  _ on the board of Shelby Company Limited. Maybe, Lizzie thought, he should be.)

Tom nodded. “Fine. That brings us to Item Four: Oswald fucking Mosley. Finn, if you’d be so good-”

Tom gestured to the door, and when Finn sprang out of his chair, it wasn’t to leave. He charged at Tommy, who caught him by the shoulder and the throat and held him tight, their faces a few inches apart. 

“How could you?” Finn asked, his voice choked. “It was an accident, how could you-”

“I know you didn’t mean for this to happen,” said Tommy, talking quickly in a low voice. “I know you didn’t mean it, but there are fucking consequences, Finn. You got men killed. You did. Not me, not Arthur. You opened your mouth, and Polly’s man is dead. That was you. You’ve still got your family, same as me, same as Arthur. It’s what any man gets. But you can’t work with us, Finn.”

They were both crying. Lizzie realized she was crying too, and this time she did give in and put her head down on the table. Ada’s cool fingers ghosted over the nape of Lizzie’s neck, and she wondered how poor Ada was taking this: her brothers fighting, her aunt furious, and her with a fatherless baby in her belly. Lizzie sat back up and smiled at Ada, who managed to smile back, just a bit.

“We’ll talk later,” said Tommy, releasing Finn. “Now go.”

Finn went. 

“Right,” said Tommy, dragging a chair away from the table and dropping into it. “Right,” he repeated, lighting a cigarette. “Mosley.”

“Why does he matter, Tom?” asked Johnny Dogs. “Can’t you just- not help him anymore?”

Tommy shook his head. “You all heard him,” he said. “At the rally, or on the radio. He wants the Jews gone. He writes letters to Mussolini, and most of the travelling families have heard about what fucking Mussolini’s done to the Romanis. The Italians are deporting any Rom who can’t prove he’s Italian, and more are dying. It starts with the Jews, and then gets to the gypsies, and then it’s us.”

“He’s dangerous,” said Ada quietly. “But he’s popular.”

“Not popular enough to win seats,” said Tommy. “I’d like to keep it that fucking way.”

The room was quiet: only the crackling of the sad little fire and the occasional muffled shout or rumbling motor from the street. 

“It’s dangerous,” he said finally, his voice low. “It’s fucking- it’s my problem. Not Shelby Company Limited. I’ll do my best to keep you all out of it.”

“That’ll be a first,” said Polly, rising to her feet. “Don’t call me again,” she told Tommy, and then she was gone.”

“I’ll listen in London,” said Ada, standing as well. “See what people are talking about. Be carefully, Tommy,” she said, and then she was gone too.”

“Don’t really see what me and Curly can do,” said Charlie. “But you let me know, Tom. C’mon, Johnny.”

And then it was Tommy and Arthur and Lizzie, and the room seemed darker, and the heat of the fire had still done nothing about the chill in the room. 

“Why’d you do that, Tom?” Arthur asked. “Why’d you say that shit to Finn?”

“He’s- I had to do something,” said Tommy. “We kept him sheltered from it. The bodies, and the fucking- he isn’t John. He never saw France, never got so used to the smell of death and rot in the air that he could forget it. He doesn’t realize all the bad fucking things that happen, because we kept him from it.”

“But you’ll let him back,” said Arthur, his face pinched. “You’ll let him back after a while.”

“Maybe,” said Tommy shaking his head. “Fucking- I don’t know, Arthur. But it was this or kill him, and I couldn’t do that. I fucking couldn’t.”

Lizzie wondered if he’d thought about it. If he’d thought that he’d have to kill the little boy he’d half-raised, and loved desperately. Compared to that, firing him had been nothing. 

“Alright,” said Arthur heavily, leaning towards Tom the way a toddler leaned against his mother’s legs. For security and comfort and reassurance. “Alright, Tom. You’re right. He never went to France, never saw the way things could be. He grew up to be a posh boy, how about that. Never thought we’d see it.”

“You’re right,” said Tommy, smiling a little. “Fucking rich lad. That’s Finn, playing at being a soldier.”

“He isn’t John. We shouldn’t- we shouldn’t have expected that from him, should we.”

“I don’t know, Arthur,” said Tommy, walking to the fireplace and putting out the fire. “I don’t fucking know.”

* * *

> Here was a **new generation** , shouting the old cries, learning the old creeds, through a revery of long days and nights; destined finally to go out into that dirty gray turmoil to follow love and pride; a new generation dedicated more than the last to the fear of poverty and the worship of success; **grown up to find all Gods dead, all wars fought, all faiths in man shaken.**
> 
> \-- F. Scott Fitzgerald, _This Side of Paradise_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Churchill! Yes! 
> 
> I’m fully aware that this is Not How The Show Will Go, but I’m having fun playing with power dynamics and late 1920s/early 1930s politics. Steven Knight has set up Churchill as this awesome double-crossing, war-loving old coot, and the opportunity was too good to resist! (Writing Churchill and Tommy was also fun because neither of them actually says what they think, so I have to put it all in allusion and subtext.)
> 
> Re: the competency hearing. Now, a LOT of people have witnessed Tommy losing his got-damn mind, but I _literally could not_ think of more people who would be willing to testify to the fact. Tommy has a loyal crew, y’all. (Also Gina+ Michael= Mina, and Mina can go fuck themselves.)


	5. Entrenchment

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _Previously on The Last War:_
> 
> Churchill almost/kinda confesses to interfering with Tommy’s plan to kill Mosley. Churchill doesn’t want the fascists to have martyr around which people can rally. Meanwhile, Michael looked like a fucking moron trying to get people to testify against Tommy in a competency hearing, which Tommy won handily.  
> The pain arrived when Tommy called a family meeting, added Charlie Strong to the Shelby Company Limited board, and kicked off Michael. Tommy also fired Finn, and cut him off from company funds. Hopefully the little shit will learn how life ...actually works? When you aren’t rich and seemingly invincible?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The back half of this chapter is really filthy sex with some dom/sub undertones, so if you aren’t into that kind of thing, feel free to skip it! Just don’t judge me. Or do, at this point in my life idgaf :)

“It was Churchill.”

Lizzie turned her face away from the passenger window and looked over at Tom’s shadowy profile. It was dark out now, the days growing ever shorter as Christmas approached, and the only light shining on the road this late were the headlights of their own car. 

“What was Churchill?” Lizzie asked. 

“The person Billy Grade reported to. The one who ordered Barney dead.”

Lizzie felt her mouth go slack. “You’re fucking joking.”

“I’m not,” he said. “Churchill… I’ve done some jobs for him. Over the years.”

“Killings, you mean.”

Tommy shrugged. “Killings. Gathering information. It’s been lucrative work. I know a bit about the man, and I know how he works. He as good as admitted it in the study, the night he came up to dinner.”

“Winston fucking Churchill,” she said. “Fuck, Tommy. If he’s involved maybe you really ought to let it go-”

“Can’t let it go,” said Tommy. “Not this time.”

“Why?” Lizzie asked. “You can’t profit from this, can’t-”

“I promised I’d tell you who the traitor was,” said Tommy, cutting her off. “And I have.”

Lizzie bit the inside of her cheek. “How’re you going to get to Mosley if you can’t kill him?”

“I don’t know,” said Tommy, shaking his head. “I don’t fucking know. I need more information on him. I was fucking sloppy, all wrapped up in- I need more information,” he repeated. 

“How?” Lizzie asked, letting her head tilt against the window again. It wasn’t necessarily more comfortable: every time they hit a rut in the road her head bounced against the glass, but at least it was a different type of discomfort. 

“We’re going to have to start accepting some of those invitations,” said Tommy, the way he might have said, “We have to dig a latrine,” or “It will require major surgery.”

“I hate those people,” said Lizzie. “They’re the worst, Tom.”

“Can’t say I’m fond of them myself,” he said. “But Mosley runs in the higher circles, and he’s got a source of information that I don’t know. It has to be someone higher up. Has to be.”

“Why do I have to go?” Lizzie asked, peevish. He didn’t bother with her for weeks, and now she has to go to parties with weasels in evening clothes. 

“Because I need you to talk to their wives, Lizzie. They talk to each other, they send spies after their wandering husbands, they know things.”

“Good for them,” Lizzie muttered, closing her eyes again. 

Silence fell in the car again. 

“I am sorry,” she said eventually, cursing her own stupidity for thinking of his feelings when he couldn’t be bothered with hers. “About Finn. It’s a good solution. He’s stupid, but he’s young, and he didn’t know better.”

“He should have,” said Tommy. “I fucking told him;  _ I told him-” _

“And when you were eighteen you listened to what other people told you? Polly, or your brothers-”

“Fuck no,” said Tommy, disdain for authority dripping from his duly-elected Parliamentarian tongue. 

“Then why would Finn?”

“Because - it’s fucking simple. You keep your mouth shut for the good of the fucking family.”

_ There it was,  _ Lizzie thought.  _ The biggest difference between Tommy and Michael.  _ Tommy was awful sometimes- a lot of the time. But what he’d done he’d done for the family, he’d shared with his family. Oh, he had his pride. Buckets of it, pride and ambition both. But he’d always wanted to bring his family along on the ride with him. It wasn’t about  _ Tommy Shelby, M.P.  _ It was more for the goal of  _ Shelby Company Limited, worldwide.  _

He wanted legitimacy for them all. He wanted success for them all. He’d never resented Arthur his foolishness, or his inability to see the cause and effect of his actions. He’d never resented Polly her moods and odd starts, never begrudged John some encouragement. He cuddled Ruby and chased Charles and- maybe, at the root of it all, he was the most unconventionally conventional family man in England.

The rest of the family had always known the methods he’d used. They’d always understood the price they were paying. 

( _ And in exchange for what you’ve given me, your hearts and your souls, I can give you this… _ )

They turned onto the drive up the house. The windows were dark, except for the faintest of glows through the nursery windows. The entry lights had been left on, and the old-fashioned gas lamps on either side of the drive had been washed and lit. 

_ What makes a home?  _ Lizzie asked herself, sliding out of the car and looking up at the looming edifice of the place she’d comfortably lived for three years.  _ Why do I think of it as ‘the house’? _

Tommy walked around the car and leaned against the door beside her, lighting a cigarette and looking up at the brick facade with her. “We’ll be alright,” he said, his voice tired. 

Lizzie knew that saying something didn’t make it true. She knew it, and yet some part of her had always, always believed Tom when he talked that way. She’d been doomed to love him from the start, hadn’t she?

He wrapped an arm around her, tugging her so that her head could rest against his shoulder and her body was molded against his. They passed the cigarette back and forth, huddled together against the breeze, both of them reluctant to go into the big, dark house. 

Maybe he felt as strange and false inside it as she did. Maybe all those eyes in all those paintings followed him, too. 

Lizzie didn’t know who leaned in first. Maybe he had, leaning into her as he toed the cigarette butt out in the gravel of the drive. Maybe she did, leaning against him for his heat, marveling at how he managed to always be so wiry and so warm. In the end it didn’t matter who started it: they were kissing each other, slow and sweet, leaned up against the side of the car like the teenagers they’d never really had a chance to be. 

She loved his kisses. Lizzie loved Tommy’s kisses almost as much as she loved his hands: warm and strong and sure, both of them. He kissed her like he could be content to kiss her all night, like she was something delicious and wonderful that would disappear at the dawn, like a faerie princess of old. Every time, every damn time, Lizzie fell for the lies his lips and tongue and teeth told her- that he wanted her, that he cared for her _ ,  _ that she was more than a warm body and a mother for his children. 

When they broke apart for air, Lizzie clenched her hands in the front of Tommy’s jacket and held him close. “Take me to bed,” she whispered, her pulse pounding through her in rhythm older than the concept of time. “Please, Tom.”

The corner of his mouth quirked up, the sly little smirk that was the closest thing Tommy had come to a smile in a long, long while. “Don’t need to ask me,” he said, leaning in for one more quick press of his lips to hers. “But god, do I love to hear you ask for it. Ask for  _ me.” _

Lizzie shivered at his words, too far gone into lust and want to be embarrassed. Tommy took her hand, warm and strong and sure, and led her up the stairs and into the house. Their shoes echoed over the waxed floors of the hall, and neither of them looked at the paintings as they wound up the stairs. The house was silent, and Lizzie’s breathing had gone ragged already, and their bedroom smelled like  _ them, together, LizzieandTommy: _ her perfume and his shaving foam; the laundry soap on their sheets and the faint hint of sleep-sweat; the ghost of cigarettes long burned and flowers from seasons passed. It was theirs, and this… this Lizzie loved. 

His coat fell to the thick carpet of their room as Lizzie shut the door, and then he was fumbling at the neckline of her dress, looking for buttons that weren’t there, and Lizzie knocked his hands away and shimmied, pulling her dress and slip off from over her head in one go. Tommy’s gaze raked over her a moment before his hands found her again, rough and steady, the edges of his calluses catching on the silk of her stockings and garters and brassier. 

“Fuck,” he mumbled into the skin under her neck. “Never stopped wanting this.”

“Me either,” said Lizzie, fumbling between them to push his jacket from his shoulders and pluck open the buttons of his waistcoat, and then shirt. “You’ve got on too many layers,” she grumbled, breathy and distracted by his mouth on her skin and his hands on her breasts, kneading just this side of too roughly. 

“I see the way you look at me sometimes,” he said, voice gone sex-wracked already. Tommy crowded her back against the door, using his hips to hold her in place, eye to eye in their stocking feet. He kept her pinned there as he ruthlessly stripped off his waistcoat and shirt and vest, his hips grinding into her. “I see the way you look at me, sometimes, your eyes hot and your legs crossed like a fucking lady. But you’re rubbing your pretty thighs together, and I know you want me, eh? I know you like the guns, and fucking haircut, and the way I fucking walk.”

The door was hard and cool at her back, Tommy was warm and so fucking alive at her front, and if this was all she got, she would make sure that it was enough. 

“What if I do?” Lizzie asked, cupping the back of Tommy’s head and pulling him in for a kiss, all aggression and teeth and hitching breaths. 

“One day,” said Tommy, pulling Lizzie against him so he could reach around and free her tits from their silk bindings, “I’m going to make you wait for it. Tease you all fucking day- longer, maybe- and not let you come. Not until I say.”

Lizzie made a high, breathy sound, a half-swallowed hum of anticipation that Tommy noticed, because of course he did. 

“Like that, do we,” he asked, bending to slide her silk pants down her thighs, leaving her in nothing but her stockings and garters. She reached for his belt, working it open, and then he’d spun her around, away from the door, and was walking her backwards towards their bed. “Like the idea of being kept wanting, waiting for me to come through that door and fix it.”

“Yes,” she said, falling back onto the mattress of their tall bed. “Yes, I like that.”

For a long, taut moment, Tommy stood over her. He was shirtless, his trousers hung half open and low on his waist, and he had the kind of expression on his face that Lizzie imagined the more accessible kinds of gods wore before smiting an army or ripping mountains up out of the sea. All that focus, all that powerful will, and it was focused on  _ her.  _

They’d slowly fallen into this after the night of  _ mine, my property, no one touches what’s mine. _ If this was how it felt when Lucifer fell, Lizzie couldn’t blame him. She didn’t have Tommy’s heart, but by god she could borrow his focus, his mind, his body. He slid one hand up her thigh, his fingers squeezing lightly, the muscles in his forearms flexing. 

“C’mon, Tom,” she said, rocking a little from side to side, trying to pull him down over her where she needed him to be. 

He raised an eyebrow, and Lizzie rolled her head back, squinching her eyes shut. “Please, Tom, pl-”

Before she’d finished the sentence his big blunt fingers were winnowing through the soft folds of her cunny, and Lizzie rocked her hips up to meet them. 

“This has been mine,” he told her, his voice low. “For ten fucking years.”

“Other men have borrowed it- ah,” she said, her voice hitching. “But it’s always been yours, Tom. Even when I touch myself, it’s still always you.”

He bared his teeth at that, her barbarian robber boy, and hooked his fingers behind her knees, drawing her down to the edge of the bed. She arched, rubbing her cunt against the bulge of his cock through his trousers, enjoying the slightly rough scrape of the wool fabric and the knowledge that it wouldn’t be her cleaning the mark. 

He hissed and ground harder against her, his slick-sticky fingers sliding up the skin of her belly to toy with a nipple. 

“Mine, Lizzie,” he reminded her, his eyes glittering in the half-light of the room. 

“Yours,” she agreed, leaning up to dig her fingers into his hips, only to have them knocked away. 

“Wait,” he told her, giving her that half-smirk, half-grin of completely male satisfaction. “I told you.”

She looked up at him, the embodiment of all of her girlhood dreams, and snaked a hand down over her breast to her belly, to her hip, the curls at the apex of her thighs. Tommy’s nostrils flared, and his hot-cold attention was fixed to the location of her fingers. 

“Do not,” he said softly, menace in every word. “No.”

She did. She had a moment of  _ yesthereexactlyright  _ before her hand was snatched away and pinned to the bed beside her head by one of Tommy’s broad hands. 

“Is this what you wanted?” he asked, leaning over her so that there were scant inches between his face and hers. “Is it?”

“Yes,” she breathed, arching her neck to kiss him. “It is.” She had to pull against the grip of his hand to mouth her way along his jaw, and everything inside her that had been tense and coiled melted away, leaving her boneless and wanting and blinking up at Tommy, her thoughts slowing from a whir. 

Tommy rubbed the back of his knuckles over her jaw, his eyes gone uncharacteristically soft. “Like my hands on you, do you?”

“I always have,” said Lizzie as Tommy danced the tips of his fingers over her brow, down her nose, over her chin, and stopped at her pulse point. “Mmm. Even when you fuck me up in the head, I’m safe with your hands on me.”

“You are,” said Tommy, low and easy. “Even when I leave bruises.” He tightened his fingers around her wrist and Lizzie gasped, heat pooling in her belly. Probably it wouldn’t mark, but if it did… well she wouldn’t mind. Not like this, not from him. 

The hand that had been dancing over her throat slid away, and she felt him fumbling at the fly of his trousers, and then the hot, blunt head of his cock was sliding slowly over her cunt, bumping deliciously at her clit each time, and Lizzie thought she could come from that contact alone. 

A muscle twitched along Tommy’s jaw, the only sign that his teasing was taking a toll on him as well, and then he changed the angle and found her entrance and pressed into her, both of them arching at the contact. Lizzie sucked in air, arching her neck again, because there was nothing,  _ nothing,  _ like that first slide into fullness. Not when she’d been wanting, not when her body and mind (and traitorous heart) were all pulsing in tandem with unfulfilled need.

“Fuck,” she hummed, rocking her hips delicately while Tommy held still over her, his fingers clutching at her waist like she’d drift away if he let go. 

Lizzie reached for him again, and Tommy bared his teeth at her. “Hands in the sheets,” he told her. “One of these nights I’m going to tie your hands to the headboard. Then I’ll take you apart. With my fucking  _ teeth.” _ He bent and bit the upper curve of her breast before sucking a nipple into his mouth, hot and rough and tight the way she liked it. 

“Promise?” she asked, wishing she could stroke the back of Tommy’s head where the hair was short and fine. 

He made a low, animal noise and bent back over her, his eyes hot and lust-blown and focused on hers. One of his hands caught her wrist and he braced his weight on it, pinning her to the bed, and the fingers of his other hand found their way right back to his throat. His hips were moving smoothly now, the kind of lazy, deep thrusts that Lizzie could practically feel under her breastbone. 

The first two fingers of Tommy’s right hand tapped deliberately over her pulse point, and just his fingers there, just his  _ touch,  _ already had Lizzie floating. She could feel the question in his eyes, the  _ can I cross this line?  _ telepathy developed by people who’d been fucking each other for a long, long time. 

“Yes,” she said, breathy and high, and then his fingers closed around her throat. He wasn’t holding her tightly, not yet. She could breathe and her blood could flow and his touch was only the suggestion of what could come, but that touch was enough. He was over her and around her and all she could see and smell and feel and it was  _ everything,  _ everything.

“You’re mine,” he told her, his eyes focused and dilated like a predator sensing blood. “You’re fucking mine, Lizzie.”

She nodded, her chin bumping against his knuckles, and  _ fuck,  _ she was hanging on his next word, his next touch. Her hips were rising up to meet his, wishing he’d change the angle to rub his pubic bone against her clit; she needed to come so badly she could cry, but somehow that all felt very far away: she needed to come, but she didn’t need to come the same way she needed Tommy right now, needed his hands on her. Everything was soft and foggy and distant, even her arousal, which felt like a bright spark in a sea of warm light. 

“Touch yourself,” he told her, his fingers leaving her neck to drag her left hand down to her cunny. “C’mon, there’s a girl.”

And then his fingers were back around her throat, cupping it like something valuable and precious, and her own fingers were moving through the tacky-slick mess he’d made of her, occasionally dipping her hand down to the place where he was sunk inside her just to watch him shudder. He was perfect at this, a master playing her like a finely tuned instrument, but he wasn’t infallible. He wanted this too, just as much as she did. 

Lizzie looked down her body to the place where his sharp hipbones pressed against hers, and then back up at his face, content to be held here forever, suspended like a bead on a wire, strung between absolute satisfaction and the ethereal hell that was her growing arousal. Her fingers were circling around and around her clit, and his fingers were closed so painfully tight around her wrist, and the world ended where Tommy ended, and-

And then Tommy’s fingers closed once more low around Lizzie’s throat, with the heel of his hand resting on her collarbone.  _ And then he squeezed.  _

The tingling started almost immediately as Tommy’s fingers pinched like a vise. She could feel her lungs expanding and contracting, could feel Tommy’s belly pushing her fingers even more firmly into her clit, could feel her mouth opening as air rushed out in shuddery little exhalations, but her head had gone all to static, rushing and frantic and floating, and then the blood was back in her brain and Tommy’s fingers were caressing her throat and he’d pressed his forehead to hers. 

“God,” he said, his tone worshipful. “God, Lizzie.”

She caught his mouth and kissed him, hard and messy, and then his fingers were back on her neck and her belly was trembling, a shivery web of nerves ever-tightening with arousal. Tommy nodded to her, and she nodded back, and he was driving into her, the bed creaking. Her fingers were working frantically at her oversensitive clit and his body was hot, too hot, and sweaty-slick against her. His fingers tightened on the sides of her throat... and it all fell away- a moment of weightlessness, like jumping off a riverbank: everything was warm and bright and heady and perfect, suspended forever in this perfect moment.

She felt like she was dying, like she was the most alive she’d ever been, like this was love and birth and decay and eternity; her body was ever-expanding like the universe, and then it snapped back and Lizzie came so hard she went limp with it, air rushing into her lungs and blood to her head and --she was floating, limbs heavy and tingling, and Tommy had gone still above her, his hips pressed nearly painfully to hers… but Lizzie was somewhere beyond pain, now. 

Cool air hit her body as Tommy stepped away from her. She started to slip down the side of the mattress, loose-limbed and unconcerned, but Tommy caught her and lifted her up into the center of the bed before disappearing again. 

She could hear him moving around their bedroom, but the footsteps and clinks were like the moon: remote, distant, and of no importance to her now. She was a collection of swirling, primordial feelings trapped in a person-shaped body; a supernova condensed into Lizzie Shelby. She felt oversensitized and entirely wrung out, and blissed beyond belief.

Tommy was back- she could smell him on the air, salt and soap and cigarette smoke. A damp flannel ran up the inside of her thigh, chasing the slick and come that had run down her; marked and stained by Tommy Shelby,  _ god _ . 

“You’re alright, Lizzie girl, you’re alright. Fucking hell,” he added, his tone a little reverent. “What did I do to deserve this, eh?” 

Lizzie laughed a little, giddy and breathless, and Tommy rubbed his hands up and down her ribs like he could hold her laughter in palms. 

“A better question is probably- what did you do to deserve me?” he asked, and he was really smiling now, both corners of his mouth tipped up and the ghost of a dimple winking in his right cheek. “Had to be something bad, Lizzie girl, getting saddled with a man like me.”

From her prone and sated position on the mattress, Lizzie wondered where this Tommy had been hiding. How long had it been since he’d smiled; since he’d poked fun at his own all-encompassing pride? Was this all it took to bring that Tommy Shelby back out again: absolute control and an orgasm that could practically stop time?

“I like you,” she told him, fully aware that she was grinning like a fool. “I rather like being saddled with you, Mr. Shelby.”

“Lucky thing, isn’t it?” Tommy asked, stroking her again. Lizzie heard the damp flannel land in the clothes bin with a soft  _ thwap,  _ and for a moment they sat together in the half dark, enjoying the softness of the night and the cooling warmth of their bodies. “Seeing as you’re married to me.”

“I should move,” said Lizzie eventually, as the pleasurable tingles faded from her fingers and toes. “But I don’t want to.”

Tommy’s big hand patted her on the hip, somewhere between a caress and a smack. “C’mon, up you get. There you go,” he said, pulling her to her feet. “Go wash. I’ll fix the bed.”

He was as good as his word. Lizzie peed and washed herself down with a fresh cloth, and by the time she’d returned to their room Tommy had stripped off the sweaty, sticky bedcover and put a faded old quilt down in its place. He was propped up in bed with a pencil and pad of paper, and Lizzie especially loved looking at him like this: shirtless with their expensive sheets pooling around his hips, his cute little specs gleaming on the bridge of his nose, his brow furrowed and expression focused. This was the Tommy Shelby only a wife would see. 

Lizzie slipped into bed beside him, her skin washed and dried and shivering to be touched. Tommy raised the arm closest to her and she scooted over, initially pressing her side to his before giving up and sprawling over his lap, her head pillowed on his belly. To her surprise Tommy let her, shifting his papers to the bedside table and winnowing his fingers through her tangled hair.

It felt so  _ good.  _ Slowly Lizzie relaxed into him, her breathing slowing to match his, contentedly melting into her husband. 

“It kills me, having you like this,” he said, slow and deep like he was choosing his words carefully. “Whatever I want from you.”

“I want it too,” said Lizzie, lazy and half-asleep. “I like it.”  _ I like you. (I love you.) _

“You trust me,” said Tommy. “And it’s… I don’t have the fucking words, Lizzie. Your life and body and fucking pleasure in my hands.”

“I don’t have to think about anything, when- when it’s like we were,” she said, flexing her fingers in the sheets over his thigh, fisting them the way a child clung to her blankets. “It’s so simple, and… distant from me.”

He stroked his fingers over her scalp again, soothing and comforting. “I’ve fucked up in the past, Lizzie. I haven’t- it hasn’t been easy for you.”

If this was what he wanted to talk about, Lizzie wished he’d hush and let her sleep. 

“I know you don’t want anything to do with Mosley. I know it’s- a reminder,” he said finally. “But I need your help. Again.”

When had she ever told Tommy ‘no’? Had she ever? She’d complained and hissed and negotiated, but she couldn’t think of a single time when she’d outright denied him. 

“They make me feel like a whore, Tom,” she said finally. 

He didn’t fuss at her. He didn’t deny it, or tell her that she was reading too much into the women’s scathing glances and the men’s lingering gazes. “Please,” he said quietly. “You trust me in here, so beautifully, and it’s- fuck, Lizzie. It makes me feel  _ whole.  _ I’m just asking that you trust me with this, too.”

Lizzie shifted to sit up, but Tommy cupped her head and pushed her gently back into his lap. 

“I want to be told what you’re doing, then,” she said eventually, soothing herself by running her fingertips back and forth over the skin of his side. “Why you need me to befriend whatever wife, or why Lord Whoever is under suspicion. Alright? I don’t want- I don’t want to walk around blind anymore.”

“I’ll tell you,” he said, and his voice was solemn, more serious than it had been when they’d said their wedding vows. “And we’ll do this. One last war, eh? And then life goes on.”

She wondered what he imagined for the rest of their lives. He wasn’t like Arthur; he wasn’t stupid enough to believe that he could give up this life and raise chickens and children. He wasn’t content to accept what he had and enjoy the things he’d worked for. Lizzie knew it: he wasn’t happy unless he was scheming, unless there was something to win. 

But those were problems for the future, for a time when the sun was up and things made sense. For now, with her husband’s heartbeat steady in her ear and his fingers buried in her hair, Lizzie fell asleep. 

* * *

"Life is essentially a cheat and its conditions are those of defeat; the redeeming things are not happiness and pleasure but the deeper satisfactions that come out of struggle." 

\--F. Scott Fitzgerald


	6. Siege

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _Previously on The Last War:_  
>  Tommy tells Lizzie that he needs more information on Mosley, and in order to gather it the two of them are going to have to start circulating in society. Things are still a little distant between Tommy and Lizzie, but when they get back to Arrow House she asks that Tom take her to bed. They go upstairs and have mildly kinky sex. As pillow talk Tommy asks Lizzie (again) for her help in investigating Mosely at society events, and Lizzie agrees.

Mosley’s ballroom glittered and echoed with the gossip of Tommy’s betters. Chamber music and rumor pooled and eddied along the vaulted ceiling, just out of reach of the light from soft wall sconces and too many candles. Greenery had been draped along the walls and the railings in deference to the closing in of the Christmas holiday, and between the garland and the gin, all Tommy could smell was pine- pine and sweat and expensive perfume. 

“There’s someone you need to meet,” said Mosley, steering Tommy around a group of older gentlemen smoking cigars along the edge of the floor. 

Just past the table of refreshments a short, mustachioed man was standing along. His hair was parted on the side and severely slicked down with pomade. His evening coat was well made, but without the subtle hints of luxury that Tommy had noticed on many of the other Lords in attendance.

“Mr. Adolf Hitler, may I present Mr. Thomas Shelby, the Parliamentary representative for South Birmingham. His constituency borders my own. He has agreed to co-found our new party.”

“A pleasure, sir,” said Hitler, a heavy German accent roughening his consonants.

“Mr. Hitler is the head of the new German Nazi Party. Our German counterpart, if you will. I thought he could provide valuable insight into our own people’s movement.”

Mr. Hitler reached out to shake Tommy’s hand, and as palm touched palm, Tommy had an odd, slowing, feeling; a bone-deep sense of knowing something that he hadn’t known before. Maybe this was how Polly always knew if a baby would be a boy or a girl, maybe this was how he’d known when the creaking of the tunnel struts was dangerous or benign. Maybe it was gypsy witchcraft, and maybe it was all him, but he knew something, standing there with his fingers wrapped around Mr. Hitler’s: the man had just as much blood on his hands as Tommy did, and far more besides. 

Maybe he’d killed his way into the political positions he’d held; maybe he still would. Whatever the conjugation of his crimes ( _dead, dying, gone)_ , Mr. Hitler was someone to be reckoned with. 

As the hair on the back of Tommy’s neck prickled to attention, he nodded and murmured that he’d be happy to hear any of Mr. Hitler’s ideas. 

“Excellent. The opening waltz is in a moment, gentleman. Let’s find our ladies.”

“I prefer not to dance,” said Mr. Hitler. “But please, enjoy yourself.”

“Ah,” said Mosley. “The library’s just around the corner, with some very fine brandy. Shall I escort you there, and Shelby and I can meet you momentarily? Wonderful.”

Hitler and Mosley walked off, and Tommy snaked through the crowd to find Lizzie. She was talking to two men near the partially open doors to the balcony, her heartsblood-colored dress glittering like a starling’s wing in the candle light. Tommy didn’t like the way they were looking at her, these two fucking bastards, but there wasn’t a lot he did like about these people and this place. 

“Excuse me, gentlemen,” he said, sliding an arm around Lizzie’s waist. (He was gratified when she leaned back into his hold, her body lithe and soft.) “I hear the music starting, and I’d like to borrow my wife.”

“Quite unfashionable to dote on one’s spouse,” said the shorter of the two men, sporting a grey beard two decades out of fashion.

“But understandable, in this case,” said the younger.

Tommy ignored them, and towed Lizzie by the hand to the edge of the dance floor. 

“I don’t want to dance,” she hissed at him. 

“We practiced this,” he reminded her, putting her left hand up on his arm himself. All the while he was scanning the room over her shoulder, watching the people who were watching him. “Remember? Don’t look at your feet, and follow my lead. Right?”

“Right,” she mumbled dejectedly. 

The music started, and Tommy was glad for Lizzie’s sake that it was a slower, older waltz. “You’re alright,” he told her as the music started and he began the simple L-shaped steps. “Relax, you’re fine, there’s a girl.”

Lizzie relaxed against him incrementally, loosening her spine enough so that he could navigate them around the edge of the crowd. “Look,” he told her, watching as Mosley and his wife spun by, all bored-looking glitz and well-practiced steps. “Something’s not right with these people.”

“You don’t have to fucking tell me that,” said Lizzie. 

“No, I mean- be careful what you say, alright? I know you will, I know, but- I have to leave the room after this dance. Mosley and some of the other Fascists, they want to talk about the party with a man from Germany, and I’ve just got a bad fucking feeling, alright?”

“Alright, Tom,” said Lizzie, looking away from her fixed-gaze point of his left ear. “Alright. But you fucking owe me for this.”

“Yeah?” he asked, pulling her a little closer. That was stupid- she stumbled, and for a second Tommy felt guilt for putting her in a position where Lizzie might be embarrassed. (Again.)

“Yeah,” she said, the corner of her mouth quirking into a there-and-gone-again smile. “I have a few ideas for the way you can make it up to me.”

She was flirting with him, was Lizzie, three years married and while they were in a room full of some of England’s most corrupted sons. 

Tommy felt himself smile back. “I’m a businessman,” he told her, splaying his fingers a little wider over her back. “And a deal’s a deal.”

The song slowed, and with a surprising amount of reluctance Tommy let Lizzie go. 

“Good luck,” she whispered, and he nodded to her. As he crossed the waxed parquet floor towards the door he saw at least two other men making their way towards his wife. Tommy wondered what Mosley had told his allies about Lizzie’s past. A gentleman was never supposed to kiss and tell, but Mosley would never hesitate to use information that could weaken one of his adversaries. 

Mosley met him at the entrance to the ballroom, and Tommy reached in his pocket for a cigarette. A few of the men were smoking cigars, and a few of the ladies had cigarettes on long silver and jade holders. He put the narrow smoke between his lips and lit it, ignoring the way Mosley was looking at him. 

“Tommy,” said a high, simpering voice. 

Fucking Gina. That’s all the night fucking needed; Gina and fucking Michael.

“Like I said,” said Mosley. “It seems I can never talk with you without your family present.”

Michael and a collared priest followed Gina to the entrance of the room. 

“Father Coughlin is our family priest, from back in Detroit,” said Gina. “I heard he was coming to visit, and I thought he might enjoy some of Lord Mosley’s ideas.”

“It’s just ‘sir’, actually,” said Mosley, smiling at Gina.

“Is it?” she asked, her wide-set eyes bright and full of guile. “I apologize.”

“Mr. and Mrs. Gray, I hope you won’t mind if we borrow your guest? Just a brief bit of business, and then I’ll return him to you, safe and sound.”

“Of course,” said Gina, looping her arm through Michael’s. “C’mon. Let’s go say hello to Lizzie.” They walked down into the ballroom, and Tommy, Coughlin, and Mosley were quickly joined by Lord Rothermere and Mr. Pennington.

 _Fuck._ Tommy followed Mosley and the others down the hallway and into the library. His mind was spinning, sorting through all the things that Michael knew, that Michael could tell Mosley to bring down not only this scheme, but the company and their fucking lives down around their ears. _Fucking_ Michael, and fucking Polly too. If it had been anyone else, Tommy could have fucking killed him and been done with it. 

Hitler was waiting for them in the shadowy library, smoking by the fire and studying the art and artifacts resting on Mosley’s mantle. Introductions were made all around, drinks were poured, and seats were taken. Then the true reason for the fucking ball began in earnest.

“Gentlemen. As of yet the British Union of Fascists is a …pleasurable concept for the few amongst us. We have no voting power, and an imperative need to reach the working men we hope to serve.” 

_You serve no one,_ Tommy thought. Men like him never did. Power and money was a game to bastards like this, a tool used to accrue more and more, like a magnet collecting iron filings. At least Tommy could honestly say that at the start, he’d done it for his family. 

“Nobody knows about us,” said Lord Rothermere. “When we wrote about the Cable Street riot, there was a bump in papers.”

“Lord Rothermere runs the _Daily Mail_ ,” explained Mosley smoothly. “And in the States, Father Coughlin hosts a national radio broadcast about the dangers of the Jew, isn’t that right?”

“Yes,” said the priest. “Jews and Communism and war.”

Around Tommy, the other men nodded soberly. 

_And this is how our country has been run,_ Tommy thought. _For hundreds of fucking years. Inbred, chinless fools making decisions for other men. Decisions they’d never have to live with themselves. Fuck, Jessie was right. Communism probably would be better than this._

“Cable Street was a good start,” said Rothermere. “A savage display by the Jew. Disrupting peaceful political rallying; angry that their plans are being exposed.”

Again, everyone nodded. 

The most effective thing, for Germany,” said Hitler, steepling his fingers together. “Was our Referendum. A year previously, our party held twelve seats. Now, we are the second largest political party in Germany.”

“What was the referendum?” Coughlin asked. 

“Law Against the Enslavement of the German People,” said Hitler, his voice clipped and confident. Across from the fire his eyes glittered, and Tommy wondered, and wondered, and wondered. “The Referendum was often the first time our citizens had heard of our party. It didn’t matter if it did or did not pass. It centered Germany, and the future of Germany and Germany alone, in the political discussion.”

“Yes,” said Mosley thoughtfully. “Britain first, of course. Or … making Brittania great again.”

Hitler nodded. “Legitimacy is what people look for. Nobody wishes to spend their vote on a cause that cannot enact change.”

_Legitimacy. Tommy could tell him a thing or two about that._

“What about you, Shelby?” Mosley asked, his dark eyes and sharp nose making him look hawk-like in the severe shadow of the fire. “You’re being uncharacteristically reticent.”

Tommy shrugged. “People don’t like change. They push back against it. We can’t take the vote overnight. With the market crash, more and more factory workers are talking about their wages or hours being cut. People are worried, Mosley. They want jobs, here. Now. I’d- I’d tax imports, I think. Create jobs, make people feel like we have their best interests in mind.”

“We do, Mr. Shelby,” said Mosley smoothly. “But, as ever, you have… keen instincts.”

“After the war, thirty percent of Germany was without work,” said Mr. Hitler. 

_Yeah? After the war everyone I knew was dead. Or fucking wished they were._

Hitler continued, “We were inspired by the American industrial spirit, you see. I have been in contact with Mr. Henry Ford, in Detroit. He’s sympathetic to our cause.” 

_Fuck._ Fuck!

“He revolutionized the way that machinery can be assembled. Cars are not yet so popular in Germany, because they are imported from Britain, or France, or even America. We have started factories that will employ any able German citizen. Unemployment is already dropping. One day there will be a job for every man, and a strong law that governs them.”

And on and on it went- schemes and hatred, passed back and forth over expensive brandy in a darkened room. Tommy took note of all of it, arranging and rearranging the pieces in his mind. _Gina Gray, maiden name Ford. Hitler, Mussolini, fascism, the Jews, the gypsies…_

“Mr. Hitler, I believe I speak for all of us when I say that your government is an inspiration for our own, of course, and that we appreciate the insight you’ve given us.”

The other men murmured their agreement, Hitler bowed his head in acknowledgement, and Tommy thought that Mosley’s words smacked of treason. He had no great love for the king, but he’d bled and bled and watched men die for England. He’d fought the _Germans_ for England, for the fucking king. 

Father Coughlin headed for the front door, likely on the way back to whatever dank pond he was calling home. Rothermere and Pennington wandered towards the patio, cigars in hand. Mosley was already headed for the dancing, and all Tommy wanted to do was find Lizzie and get her the fuck away from here. He walked down the hall, following the sound of music, and stood at the top of the steps, scanning the ballroom below. 

All the men were in black and white, like him, like a Hollywood film. The women were glittering splashes of color, darting through the crowd like bright coi through a pond (or goldfish in a trough). Lizzie was taller than the rest, and when he found her she was standing with her back to the wall, two other women talking with her. 

With growing anger, Tommy watched as Mosely wove his way to Lizzie. The orchestra was playing a foxtrot, and Tommy knew Lizzie could dance that one. She’d been a hostess in a music hall, she could dance beautifully, but she’d never learned any of the formal dances that had been passed around the fucking aristocracy for a hundred years- why would she? 

Mosley bowed, and Lizzie smiled, but not her real one. Tommy recognized that smile; he’d seen her give it a thousand times. It was smooth and well-rehearsed, put on and taken off easily, just another part of a whore’s working wear. 

She said something. Mosley waves his hand as though brushing her excuses away, and then he was leading her away from the wall and onto the dance floor, and _his hands were on Lizzie’s fucking skin._

Tommy couldn’t shoot Mosley in his own home in front of a hundred witnesses. Not even he could get out of that. 

Gina was dancing with Rothermere, and Michael was talking in the corner to some other lordlings that Mosley ran around with, and-

-and the song was ending, and Tommy didn’t care if it wasn’t the done thing, he was taking his wife home.

He cut through the throng, keeping his eyes on Mosley as he escorted Lizzie back to the edge of the room. 

“Oh, there you are, old man,” said Mosley as he spotted Tommy. “Wondered where you’d got off to. Just had a lovely dance with your lady, here. Just like old times.”

Tommy held his face still and nodded. “She’s a lovely dancer, our Lizzie.”

“Quite,” said Mosley. “Well, enjoy the party, Shelby. Happy Christmas. Lizzie.”

Tommy took Lizzie’s hand and turned to tug her towards the door, but she pulled back. “Tom,” she hissed, her eyes a little frantic. “We have to fucking talk.”

“I know,” said Tommy. “Let’s-”

“Michael and Gina are here, and-” 

Tommy turned to her, pulled her into him like they were going to dance, and hissed, “I fucking know, Lizzie, I know. Let’s get our coats and get the fuck out of here, right? Then we can talk about it, eh?”

She relaxed in his arms, yielding into him just enough to soothe something that had been coiled tight in his belly since he’d walked into Mosley’s fucking house. She may not trust him as far as she could throw him when it came to other women, or fuking dope, or with the plans he had for the family, but she could trust him with her. He could build on that. 

(And wouldn’t think about why it mattered.)

“Come on,” he said, holding her hand and skirting around the bouncing, whirling dancers. “Let’s go home.”

She followed behind him, her perfume soft and familiar and her hand warm in his. A footman in a uniform that reminded Tommy of the old regimentals brought their coats, and he helped Lizzie into hers and then buttoned up his own. 

They stepped out onto the genteely weathered stone steps, and another young man rushed off to bring their car around to the drive. It was a quiet street, and the stars were out, and the house protected them from the worst of the wind.

“Michael and Gina,” Lizzie began, but Tommy hushed her. 

“Not here,” he said. “Wait.”

They could hear the faint, tinny echoes of music pouring out the foyer and onto the steps, and Tommy stepped behind Lizzie and rested his chin on her shoulder. “Would you like to dance?” he asked, voice soft. 

Lizzie turned in his arms and took his hand with hers, falling easily into the swaying rhythm of seduction that every heart recognized and every body knows. “You know,” she told him, leaning forward to rub her cold nose briefly against his, “Mrs. Featherwythe scolded me for liking you too much. She said talking to one’s spouse at a society event isn’t fashionable.”

“Fuck fahion, and fuck all these people,” said Tommy, pulling Lizzie in closer. 

“Fuck ‘em,” Lizzie agreed, pressing close and letting her forehead fall forward to rest on Tommy’s shouler. In a muffled voice she added, “Mrs. Pennington wanted to know if we’d decided which school to send Charles to. I told her that he was six years old, and she reminded me that Eton applications are due when he’s eight, and she has a brother on the admissions committee. Tom, we can’t send our boy there. They’ll eat him alive.”

It had bothered him when Lizzie began slipping up and calling Charles ‘our’ or ‘her’ anything. It had felt like she was erasing Grace, and maybe she was, but not for the reasons Tommy had feared. She’d never taken down a painting or rearranged a photograph or even messed with the room where Grace’s clothes still hung. All she’d done was love a motherless boy, with a father too wordless to cope. 

“We won’t,” he said, rubbing a hand over her back and watching as their car was pulled around. “Come on, now. Home.”

He slid behind the wheel, and Lizzie settled in the passenger seat, and then they were driving off of Mosley’s property and off into the blessedly fascist-free night. 

Lizzie was fidgeting with the fur edging of her coat, and she looked tired in the scraps of light shining through the windows. 

“Light me a cigarette, would you?” he asked, just to break the silence. She slid across the seat and reached into his coat pocket, pulling out his cigarettes and matches, lighting one for him, and another for herself. 

“Gina is a Ford, of the American car company,” said Tommy, taking a drag of cigarette and enjoying the burn of ashes in his mouth and smoke in his mouth. “Ford has sympathies for European fascists. One of her family friends came tonight, and that’s why she was at Mosley’s event.”

“They came and found me,” said Lizzie, turning to blow smoke away from the windscreen. “Michael and his pretty wife. D’you think she’s even pregnant?”

“God’s truth, I don’t fucking know,” said Tommy. “Sometimes I think she loves him, sometimes I think she’s using him.”

“Doesn’t look pregnant,” Lizzie muttered. 

“Baby or no baby, they’re fucking dangerous,” said Tommy.

“I know,” said Lizzie, turning back to him. “That’s what I wanted to tell you in the ballroom. Michael found me, and said to tell you that he wants to talk. Otherwise he’ll tell everyone about your plan to kill Mosley. He wasn’t involved with that, was he, Tom?”

“No,” said Tommy, keeping his lips wrapped around his cigarette as he hit the clutch and changed gears. “He wasn’t.”

“What do you think he wants?”

“Me, dead.”

Lizzie went white, and Tommy shifted his cigarette into his right hand and reached for Lizzie with his left. “He can’t. He wants the company, or money. It’s always been fucking money, with him.”

( _Polly had told him that either he or Michael would kill the other, and she couldn’t see which_.)

“I haven’t seen you turning away cash,” said Lizzie dryly. 

“Hmm. D’you think he’ll give me until after Christmas? I’ve neglected my shopping. Again.”

“I’ve finished for the children,” said Lizzie in that half-exasperated, half-fond voice she’d been using on him since becoming his secretary. 

“Yeah? What’re we getting them?”

“Charles wants to learn to play polo. I got him a polo saddle for the pony, and little hock boots, and the usual mess of cars and wooden guns and tin soldiers. He keeps losing them; there has to be an army of them up in the hayloft.”

“That’s my boy,” said Tommy, fond. They all gravitated to the stables, even little Ruby. Lizzie, for her part, usually was looking for the rest of her erstwhile family. “And what about Ruby?”

“A pedal car,” said Lizzie. “And a paints kit.”

“God help Alice,” said Tommy, smiling a little. “She’ll be chasing Rube all over the lawns.”

“I know,” said Lizzie. “It makes me tired just thinking about it.”

“And what about you, Mrs. Shelby? Anything you’d like to see from Father Christmas?”

“Peace,” said Lizzie, scooting across the seat to rest her head against Tommy’s shoulder. 

“He’s a jolly old elf, but I don’t think he’s that good,” said Tommy. “C’mon. We’re at the top, Lizzie. Gotta enjoy it while we can.”

‘We’ve got everything we need,” she said, and then added, “We’ve got everything we want, too. It’s a good life, Tom. I’m thankful for it.”

She was, she really was thankful for it. That fucking… hope, that perseverance, it had kept his heart from breaking more nights than she knew. No matter what shit life gave her, Lizzie always got on with it, scraping together a little life for herself, either as a whore or a secretary or a fuckin board member of Shelby Company Limited. 

She was a little like Barney, in that way. She’d had nothing; she hadn’t even had a family to love her, and yet on she’d gone, hoping that things would get better. And then she’d married him, and a part of him had hated her for it. 

He didn’t have the words to tell her any of it, so he held her hand and listened to her gentle breaths and drove them home through the dark. 

~~~

Three days before Christmas, he got the call. 

“Tommy?”

“Hello, Michael.”

“Did Lizzie pass on my message?”

“She did,” said Tommy, leaning back in his office chair and closing his eyes. The numbers had all started to go blurry. Maybe he needed new glasses.

(Maybe he needed more sleep.)

“How’s your wife? Quite the social climber, I hear.”

“She wants me to be successful,” said Michael. “She says you’re threatened by that.”

“I’m hearing a lot about what Gina fucking thinks,” said Tommy, reaching into the box for a cigarette. “What about you, eh?”

“Today,” snapped Michael. “Your Parliament office. Three o’clock.”

_No police in Parliament._

“Fine,” said Tommy, and hung up the phone. 

“Lizzie?” he called stepping out into the hall. 

“Upstairs, Mr. Shelby,” said Frances, appearing from back in the kitchens. “Cleaning Ruby up from breakfast. Charles will be starting on his lessons, soon.”

“Right,” said Tommy, heading up the stairs. He’d know this if he was home more, that much had been clear from France’s tone.

Lizzie was in the nursery rubbing jam from Ruby’s face while their girl shrieked and giggled and squirmed. “You’re a mess, Ruby Shelby,” said Lizzie fondly, tickling her fingers over Ruby’s belly. “My sticky mess.”

“Daddy!” Ruby shrieked, slipping away from Lizzie and zooming over to Tommy, her arms raised. He scooped her up, marveling at the way her little frame could feel so sturdy and so light at the same time. 

“Hello, Ruby,” he said, looking at the round little face so close to his. “You giving your mother a hard time?”

“No!”

“Oh, well that’s a good thing,” he replied, deadpan. “Because I give her enough grief for the both of us.”

Ruby put one hand on his cheek and mumbled something that ended with, “Horses.”

“No, no horses today. I’ve come to tell mummy that I’m off to London, and I won’t be back home tonight.”

Lizzie’s face fell, and he could see the way her shoulders ever so subtly stiffened. He wondered what hurt her more: the idea of other women, or being excluded from the problems with Michael and Mosley?

“Michael called,” he said, putting Ruby down by her tiny, child-sized table. “Wants to meet me in my office in London. On the way back I need to speak with Charlie and Curly, and Johnny, if he’s there.”

“It’ll be Christmas Eve when you get back,” she said, turning away from him to tidy the little wooden Noah’s Ark set that had been strewn along the windowsill. 

“I know, Lizzie. I know.”

“Be safe, then,” she said. “And give me a call.”

He couldn’t tell if she wanted him to touch her or not, so he turned for the door. Probably Ada had been right, and Esme too: Shelbys broke everything they touched, and it was their own damn faults they couldn’t find peace.

~~~

Parliament was quiet and empty during the Christmas recess. Tommy’s brogues echoed over the long hallways, and his office was still and quiet when he unlocked it. Jonathan had left messages piled neatly on the corner of his desk, refilled the whiskey decanter, and had gone back to- Brighton, or wherever it was his mother lived. 

(Part of him still looked around for bolt cutters whenever he entered this room. Ten years out from the war, he had to accept that it wouldn’t be going away.)

As he slid into his desk chair and reached for a cigarette he checked the clock, and then huffed a laugh. Here he was, waiting around to get blackmailed, and more worried about having time to do his Christmas shopping than he was about the threats. Fucking ridiculous. 

Michael walked into the office with his jaw set and a file under his arm. 

“Tommy,” he said,nodding and taking a seat in front of the desk. 

“Michael,” he replied. 

“I haven’t told Mosley yet,” he said, cutting straight to the point. He knew how much Tommy hated petty bullshit. “Gina wanted me to.”

“Foolish of her,” said Tommy, striking a match and lighting a cigarette. 

A muscle twitched in Michael’s jaw, but he ignored the comment. “It’s more valuable to us this way,” he said, tossing the file towards Tommy. It landed on the desk with a _thwap._

“That,” said Michael as Tommy opened the file, “Is a drafted contract between Gray Industries Worldwide, and Shelby Company Limited.”

“Really.”

“Gray Industries will take over the American portion of Shelby Company Limited’s business. Imports will be purchased at a fixed rate, ensuring all profits will be kept by Gray Industries. Car parts, gin, and opium will be distributed at our discretion, using supply lines already established by Gina’s family.”

“You mean the legitimate side of her family,” said Tommy. “From what I understand Henry Ford is a staunch prohibitionist. He’d look very poorly on his niece helping to distribute opium and blue ruin amongst the States’… unsuspecting population.”

“He doesn’t need to know,” said Michael.

“I could tell him,” said Tommy, watching Michael’s eyes. 

“And I could tell Mosley. This is the best solution, Tommy, you have to see that. You keep Shelby Company Limited, you keep turning a profit. Gina and I get set up in New York, take Polly. Maybe she’ll talk to one of us again before doomsday.”

Michael was using his Reasonable Tone again, the same one he’d used at the family meeting when he’d suggested that Tommy and Arthur step into a benign retirement. Tommy wished the cap he’d brought had razor blades in it. Would Gina stay with Michael if he couldn’t fucking see?

“So this is it, eh. Gray Industries in a partnership with Shelby Company Limited. And you don’t tell Mosley.”

“We continue to get favorable rates… and yes. I helped make your business legitimate. Now you do the same thing for mine.”

“I’ll keep the injunction,” said Tommy. “If you infringe on our suppliers anywhere outside of America, we’ll take you to court.”

“Understood,” said Michael. “America is a big place, Tom. Open market. Plenty of opportunities for me there.”

 _Fuck,_ he wasn’t negotiating. You could never trust a man who didn’t negotiate terms. 

“Increase the fees to Shelby Company Limited to 4.5%,” said Tommy. 

“Three.”

“Three and a half.”

“Fine,” said Michael, and stuck out his hand.

“Good,” said Tommy, standing and buttoning the jacket of his suit. “I’ll have my lawyer get these back to you by the new year.”

“Where are you rushing off to?” Michael asked as Tommy grabbed both their coats from the rack.

“Shopping,” said Tommy. “It’s a fucking nightmare."

* * *

> Better twenty honest years
> 
> Than their dull three score and ten.
> 
> Lads you’re wanted. Come and learn
> 
> To live and die with honest men.
> 
> You shall learn what men can do
> 
> If you will but pay the price,
> 
> Learn the gaiety and the strength
> 
> In the gallant sacrifice.
> 
> Take your risk of life and death
> 
> Underneath the open sky.
> 
> Live clean or go out quick-
> 
> Lads, you’re wanted. Come and die.
> 
> \--Excerpt from _"Recruiting"_ by E.A. Macintosh

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hitler. Literally Hitler. 
> 
> During my research for this story I learned lots of interesting things, namely, “So many famous old-timey people associated with fascists.” Henry Ford? Mentioned by name in Mein Kampf! Wrote a bunch of antisemetic essays! In real life, Hitler attended Mosely’s second wedding. Since Peaky Blinders plays fast and loose with the timeline of historical events, I thought I could, too.


	7. Truce

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _Previously on The Last War:_
> 
> Tommy and Lizzie attend a ball/ the British Union of Fascists (BUF) kickoff party at Mosley’s house. Hitler is there. Michael and Gina are also there, because Gina’s family has ties to the American fascist movement. At the party several suggestions are made as to how Mosley can help get the common man to support the BUF. Tommy and Lizzie have a cute moment dancing out on the steps while they wait for the car to be brought around. 
> 
> Meanwhile, Michael is blackmailing Tommy. Michael says that if Tommy doesn’t partner with Michael and Gina’s new company, Gray International, Michael will tell Mosley about Tommy’s attempted assassination. Tommy is skeptical of the deal, but signs the partnership agreement. He has bigger fish to fry, because it’s implied that Tommy left his Christmas shopping for Lizzie until December 23rd.

Christmas hadn’t meant much to Tommy since 1914. There had been the Christmas Truce, three blessed days of silence: when shells didn’t split the air, when bullets didn’t rattle overhead, and when shovels and picks could be put down. Three days without death, though the smell of mud and decay still hung over them like fog. 

No amount of greenery or lights or fucking ribbon could capture that feeling again. Nothing else came close to understanding the meaning of peace and goodwill towards men- but that didn’t matter, much. Christmas was for the kids, now, and for Lizzie. He enjoyed watching her almost as much as he did Ruby and Charlie. 

They were all sitting on the rug in front of the tree in his office, a little fire blazing, with ribbon and paper all over the floor. Ruby had nearly glued her fingers together with sugar, taking lemon drops in and out of her mouth to show Lizzie. Charlie had already set up elaborate ranks of soldiers into which he plowed little die-cast cars, and Lizzie was wrapped in the new dressing gown he’d found for her: black velvet lined with silk, the cuffs and hem done up with silver thread. It was long and slinky and above all  _ warm,  _ because it seemed like Lizzie was always cold these days. Tommy could fix that much. 

“Here,” said Lizzie, smiling at him with her mussed hair and pink cheeks. “This one’s for you.”

It was a heavy box wrapped in plain brown paper. Tommy cut the twine with his penknife and filtered through the wads of crumpled brown paper that hid whatever was inside. The first thing he found was a book titled, “To the Skies: The Future of Aeroplane Transportation”. 

“I’ve seen how you are about cars,” said Lizzie. “If ever someone invents a car that can fly, you’ll be the first one building a factory.”

“Guilty as charged,” said Tommy. He’d been listening to industry whispers about aeroplanes, and was a little surprised that Lizzie had been as well- but then, she’d run his life and his business for a long time before Ruby had been born. She knew how he thought. 

The next thing he found in the packaging was a rough set of riding gloves wrapped around a scale model of the green vardo that they’d taken out to bury Dangerous. It was beautiful work, complete with little round metal wheels that turned gently when he touched them. 

Charles immediately zeroed in on what his dad was holding, sensing that another toy had entered the room. 

“It’s more- it’s just a placeholder,” said Lizzie, her eyes flicking from his down to Ruby, who had crawled into Lizzie’s lap with a new soft doll. “I thought, when Parliament took their Easter recess- well, it’ll be nice weather, come April. I thought the four of us could take the wagon and go for a wander. Have a trip together, when nobody’s dying or getting buried.”

Tommy shoved the box up onto the chair behind him and leaned over to kiss Lizzie’s cheek, Ruby giggling as he did. “A subtle hint to work less, eh? To set these hellions loose on the countryside? Think there’s some kind of law against that, my girl,” he told her, tickling Ruby along her ribs as he did. 

Lizzie’s smile was incandescent- pleased and happy and young again. “They are your children,” she said. “Common denominator.” (What other woman would glow at the idea of spending a week roaming about in a tiny gypsy wagon without water or power or any luxury whatsoever?)

Tommy raised an eyebrow at her. “You claiming not to have done any hell-raising of your own? Or is the fault entirely mine?”

“Don’t know what you’re talking about,” said Lizzie, haughtily turning the collar of her dressing gown up around her face. “I was a fucking good kid, me.”

She had been a good kid. A lively, persistent, perpetually-sunny, good kid. (Who’d come to school with bruises she hadn’t gotten from playing kick-the-can.)

“Alright,” said Tommy, getting to his feet and taking Lizzie’s hand to tug her off the floor too. “Breakfast. Man cannot live on sweets alone.”

“Or gin,” Lizzie mumbled quietly from beside him, and Tommy elbowed her. “C’mon, Charles. Dining room.”

“Can we play soldiers after?” he asked, peering up at Tommy with Grace’s cornflower blue eyes. The observation didn’t stab at him anymore, it just- it just was. His eyes were hers, and his hair was hers, and the stubborn set of his jaw was all his father’s. Charles just was, and Grace was, and Lizzie was. 

This was his family. This was his life. And it was alright.

“If you want to play soldiers, we can,” said Tommy, steering his son into the dining room, where eggs and toast and tea were waiting for them. “But I think you might want to go out.”

Breakfast was consumed, and Lizzie watched with a gimlet eye as Tommy downed a couple eggs. Frances gave him the all-clear sign, and after hands and faces had been washed and coats and hats had been donned, Tommy and Lizzie herded the kids out into the back garden. There on the old stone patio was a tiny polo saddle, bright blue hock boots, a cut-down polo mallet, and a toddler-sized red pedal car, complete with little painted headlights. 

Tommy laughed as Ruby rocketed away from him and scrambled into the little car. Charlie stroked a hand over the smooth leather of the saddle, his eyes wide. “Didn’t think you liked polo.”

Tommy lit a cigarette and started adjusting the tiny stirrup, sizing up his son. “I don’t,” he said, the cigarette paper sticking to his bottom lip. “Doesn’t mean you can’t learn.”

Maybe Lizzie was right; he did need to come to Charles’ fucking- fucking violin lessons, polo games, whatever. Fuck. 

Lizzie was already following Ruby across the lawn as their daughter pedaled madly, squealing when the car hit a dip and rolled even more quickly. “C’mon,” said Tommy to Charlie, picking up the saddle and letting his son manage the polo wraps and mallet. “Should we wake Archimedes up?”

“Yes!”

They walked to the stables, father and son, and Charlie told him all about his latest riding lesson. He and Archimedes jumped a 45 centimeter pole at the trot, and next time he saw Uncle Charlie and Uncle Curly he wanted to show them, too. 

“Uncle Charlie calls ‘Medey ‘that demon pony’ but I think he’s a good boy. He does whatever I ask him.”

“That’s because you’re just a lad, and Archimedes likes little lads who know how to ride. Besides, your Uncle Charlie has always hated ponies. He says they’re spiteful.”

“What’s spiteful mean?”

“It means they’re clever in a mean sort of way.”

“Why don’t you like polo?”

Too many reasons. Because it resembled cavalry charges, because too many horses broke their legs and were shot on the field, because the people who played polo were rich and lazy and fucking voted conservative. “Never learned to play,” he said, stepping inside the shadowy barn. 

“You could learn with me!” said Charles, watching as Tommy set his saddle over the hitching post. 

“Oh, I’m too old now, me,” said Tom, leaning against the wall of the barn and watching as Charles picked Archimedes’ halter and lead off the hook by his stall door. The black Welsh pony obligingly lowered his head for Charles, but gave Tommy an assessing stare as he was led out to the crossties. 

Too many ponies enjoyed children, and were distrustful of the big men who were supposed to care for them. Tommy had spent months selecting the right pony for Charles, and had bought Archimedes from a southern gentleman whose daughter had outgrown him. For the fucking life of him, he couldn’t figure out why a little girl would name her first pony ‘Archimedes’. 

Medes was groomed and saddled, and Charles haughtily led the pony past his dad to the mounting block, where he said, “Stand!” in his high little-boy’s voice. (Tommy had learned to mount by standing on Charlie Strong’s toolbox, or by vaulting up from the ground. Sometimes he wondered how money changed kids. He wondered how money was changing him.)

Tommy wandered over to Lizzie, who was smiling and pink-cheeked after jogging around after Ruby. Ruby had steered her little vehicle into the side of the stable, and since she hadn’t yet learned how to back pedal, was happily turning the wheel this way and that, babbling to herself about parties and guests. 

Tommy pulled Lizzie against him, and together they watched Charles demonstrating Archimedes’ lead changes, trotting and cantering all around the back lawn. “Thank you for this,” said Lizzie, lightly rubbing her cheek over his shoulder.

“For what?” asked Tommy. 

“For the kids, and the presents, and- I know you work hard for them. It’s always been family for you- well, mostly family, anyway. What you said, earlier. I know you work hard, Tom. I don’t want to stop you.”

“I was teasing,” said Tommy. “I’d like to take the kids on the road for a bit. Teach ‘em about where they came from.”

“They think they’re from Warwickshire,” said Lizzie. “I can’t imagine it, sometimes. How different their lives are from ours.”

“I think it’s what every parent wants, eh? Fucking… better lives for their kids.”

“Yes,” said Lizzie, looking over at him through her lashes, a wry little smile on her face. “You’ve just succeeded more spectacularly than most.”

“I’m Tommy fucking Shelby,” he said, rubbing his cold nose against hers. “That’s what I do.”

Soon enough Alice came out of the house to collect Ruby, and Archimedes was led into the stables by a groom. Tom spent some time complimenting Charlie on his riding form, and then he too was scampering back to the house, and Frances, and the promise of a wash to get all the shaggy winter pony hair off of him. 

“Wait,” said Tommy when Lizzie moved to follow Charles up to the house. “There’s something else.”

She raised an eyebrow at him, and Tommy felt ...anticipatory and sneaky. Husbandly. “There’s something else for you.”

“If it’s-”

“No,” he grinned, taking her hand and leading Lizzie back into the stables and out of the wind. “Not that. Not yet, at least. Come on.”

Her present was in the big box stall at the shadowy end of the aisle. “Look,” he said, jerking his head towards the stall door. 

Lizzie’s eyes went wide, and she snapped around to look at him so quickly that Tommy was a little surprised she hadn’t hurt herself. “He’s- you remembered,” she said, and fuck if that didn’t kill him, the surprise and wonder in her voice. She’d deserved better, Lizzie had. Certainly better than what he had to offer. 

“Big grey, you told me,” said Tommy, joining Lizzie against the stall door. Her fingers were gripping the top edge of the boards, and she looked so fucking young- the city girl taken out to the fair. “A horse of your own, to take you away. Wherever you want to go, Lizzie.”

He nearly toppled over when she turned and threw her arms around his neck, leaning her weight against him. “Tom,” she said, muffled against his throat. “I can barely fucking ride.”

He  _ laughed,  _ so fucking thrilled with her, his steady Lizzie girl. “I can teach you,” he said. 

Lizzie pulled away and blinked, her nose red and her smile everything that Tommy had hoped it would be. “What’s his name.”

“She’s a mare,” said Tommy. “Named Sylph. She’s a bit big to be a nymph of air and mist, but her coloring’s right. Nine years old, trained to pull or go under saddle, and between you and me, she has better manners than either fucking one of us.”

“She’s beautiful.”

“She isn’t papered,” he said, wrapping an arm around Lizzie’s waist as they both watched the sturdy grey lip her hay. “Gypsy heritage.”

Lizzie kissed him, quick and playful. “Gypsy origins don’t bother me,” she said, a twinkle in her eyes. 

“Good thing,” he said. “Well? Frances and Alice have the kids. You want to take her out? I bought her saddle.”

“I can barely fucking ride,” said Lizzie again. “I hate the sidesaddle-”

“Shouldn’t ride that way,” said Tommy, stuffing his gloves into his pockets and heading for the tack room. “The bloody peerage have been trying like hell to off their women. Fucking sidesaddle. All off balance, can’t get out of the way in a fall, bad for the fucking horse.”

“You told me I could have riding lessons,” said Lizzie, trailing after him. 

“Didn’t think that fucking fool would teach you sidesaddle. That saddle is hers,” he said, pointing. “But we aren’t using it today. Hold this.” 

Tommy passed Lizzie a quilted square blanket, stuck a hoof pick in his pocket, and grabbed her bridle off a rack. A surcingle went over his shoulder, and then he was marching back down the aisle of the barn again. 

“The fuck do you mean we aren’t using it? I can’t ride without a saddle, Tom, what-”

“You’ll be fine,” he said, desperately wanting a cigarette but not willing to light one in the stables, never here. Too much hay, too much sawdust, too much risk. “I’ll be up with you. There’s some Percheron in her, she can take us both.”

“Okay,” said Lizzie. “Alright.”

Tommy led Sylph from her box, hooked her to the crossties, and tossed the blanket up over her withers. The surcingle band went on in place of a girth, and then all that was left was to slide the bit into her mouth and the bridle over her ears. 

When Tommy led Sylph and Lizzie out of the barn, Lizzie’s big eyes kept flicking from the horse, to him, and back again. 

“She’s tall,” she commented. “I’ve been riding Captain. She’s bigger than Captain.”

“She is,” said Tommy. “ALmost seventeen hands.”

“That’s the stupidest unit of measurement I’ve ever heard,” said Lizzie. “Fucking ...beerbottles make more sense than hands.”

“Lizzie,” said Tommy, interrupting her nervous monologue. “Come here.”

“Why?”

“You can’t get on the horse when you’re six feet from it.”

She just squinted at him. 

“Nothing’s going to happen to you,” he said. “Come on.”

Lizzie shuffled over, and Tommy boosted her up onto the horse. Lizzie’s skirts rode up, and her bare calves wrapped around Sylph’s barrel. “She’s so warm,” said Lizzie in surprise as Tom led Sylph over to the fence. 

“Best thing on a cold day, riding a horse bareback” said Tommy, balancing himself on the bottom rung of the fence before swinging up behind his wife, who immediately tensed against him. Sylph walked off and Tommy gathered the reins, his arms around Lizzie. 

“You have to relax,” he told her. “Right now you’re telling Sylph that you’re afraid, and she’ll start to wonder why you’re afraid and look around for danger. Come on, Lizzie, it’s just like dancing. You’re a great dancer, you are. Just feel how her body moves as she walks, there’s a pattern to it.”

His patter of encouragement and instruction seemed to do the trick, because Lizzie slowly relaxed against him, letting her hips move with his and the motion of the horse beneath them. The sky was gray and heavy overhead, and occasionally the breeze would pick up and cut through his coat like there was nothing between his skin and the outside world, but the horse was warm, and Lizzie was too, and it was Christmas.

If he was a stable kind of man, he’d think of making this a Christmas tradition when the kids were older. Presents and breakfast, and then a ride as a family. God only knew where he’d be in a year, so he didn’t let himself think about it. 

Lizzie stiffened up again when he pointed Sylph’s nose away from the house and towards the back acres of the property where Johnny and a few of the Lees were camped. “But-”

“Horses weren’t meant to just walk in a circle, eh? Besides, the point was for you to be able to go anywhere, wasn’t it. Can’t go anywhere if all you ever do is practice riding in a ring.”

Lizzie twisted a piece of Sylph’s mane and nodded, finally unglueing her gaze from the back of Sylph’s ears to look around them. “You used to ride all the time,” said Lizzie absently. “Do you miss it?”

“Course I miss it,” said Tommy. “Always been the horses for me. Probably the only man in England who was furious when he grew too much to be a jockey.”

“Yes, poor you,” said Lizzie, unconsciously relaxing against him even more. “Too powerful and tall, forced to own racehorses instead of riding them.”

“Someone has to have racehorses,” said Tommy, running a hand over Lizzie’s side. “Might as well be me.”

“The horses you rode around Small Heath, from Charlie’s yard- they weren’t racehorses.”

“Fair horses, mostly,” said Tommy, cueing Syph to walk along a flattish ridge before a gradual hill to the stream below. “On their way to sale, or coming back. Some Charlie traded for, trained up, and sold again, once upon a time. It isn’t good business anymore, with cars.”

“Do you think the families will keep traveling by wagon?” Lizzie asked. “Or will they be pulled with cars one day?”

“I don’t know,” said Tommy honestly, trying not to imagine a world where the rom didn’t wander over England, road or no road. “I hope they will. Now grab some mane, Lizzie girl. We’re going to speed up.”

“But Tom-” 

He didn’t give her a chance to be nervous about it. Sylph only trotted for a few steps before settling into a rocking-horse canter. Tommy held both reins in one hand and wrapped a hand around Lizzie’s waist with the other, and of course it wasn’t his best idea. He’d never found a boundary that he didn’t want to push or a bruise he didn’t want to press. It was easy to keep Lizzie balanced, and for a moment…

For one singular, perfect moment, everything locked into place. Lizzie moved  _ with  _ him instead of against him, Sylph’s hooves beat out a three part rhythm, rolling in time with his heartbeat, and the cold wind was biting at his face and the grass was rolling past beneath them, and this was  _ his:  _ his land, his wife, his time to spend on a horse under snow-laden sky. Parliament and Mosley and the rest of it fell away, lost in the clouds of Sylph’s breath, and they  _ flew.  _

As they reached the end of the flat ridge Tommy reined the horse back down to a walk, and Lizzie jolted against him, and her silence unnerved him. He hadn’t wanted to scare her (well, much) and he hoped- he didn’t know what he hoped. 

“Is it always like that?” she asked as they turned back towards the stables. “Like- the whole rest of your life unravels under her hooves?”

Tommy turned his face into Lizzie’s neck and kissed her pulse, because  _ she  _ had the words, even if he didn’t. “Sometimes,” he said. “And the rest of the time, you’re practicing so you can find it again.”

She seemed to think about that as Sylph trucked up the hills back to the barn. 

“Tom?” she asked as the mounting block came into view. 

“Hmm?”

“Can we burn my sidesaddle?”

_ How had he spent so much time resenting this woman?  _ “Yeah, we fucking can,” he said on a smile. 

He slid down from the horse first, and caught Lizzie when she slithered after him, her skirts all tangled up around her legs. “Happy Christmas,” she told him, pressing her smile against his mouth. 

“Happy Christmas, Mrs. Shelby,” he said in return, licking along her lower lip to taste her joy and the lingering traces of lemon drops. “I’m glad you like your present.”

“Will you come out with me again?” she asked. “To learn to ride? I don’t think Mr. Ferraux is going to approve of me riding astride.”

“Fuck him,” said Tommy, stealing one last kiss before leading a patiently waiting Sylph into the barn. “I’ll teach my wife to ride however she sees fit.”

He fucking would, too. In this, with this horse he’d found specifically for her, Tommy wanted to hoard all her trepidation and laughter and wonderment for himself.

* * *

“They slipped briskly into an intimacy from which they never recovered.” -F Scott Fitzerald, _This Side of Paradise_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is the fluffiest thing I have ever written. I barely survived. (And you can pry my love of draft horses from my cold, dead fingers.)


	8. Engaging the Enemy

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _Previously on The Last War:_
> 
> Tommy and Lizzie celebrate Christmas. It’s so damn insubstantial that it almost isn’t worth recounting here. Lizzie tells Tommy that around Easter they should take the kids on the road when someone isn’t dying. Tommy gives Lizzie a horse named Sylph and tells her he’ll teach her to ride.

No mockeries for them; no prayers nor bells,

Nor any voice or mourning save the choirs, -

The shrill demented choirs of wailing shells;

And bugles calling for them from sad shires.

\--Excerpt from “ _Anthem for Doomed Youth_ ” by Wilfred Owen

* * *

Lizzie was stuck at another party in another big house in another old room that couldn’t be efficiently heated by the roaring fire on the other side of the room. Huge windows lined the long gallery space on the second floor of the sprawling London town house, and opposite and in between the dark windows hung paintings of...dubious origin. She didn’t know a thing about art except what she liked, and the wall of rather formidable looking men in various eras of dress wasn’t doing it for her. 

“Why don’t people ever hang anything ...well, nice?” a woman asked from beside Lizzie. 

Lizzie glanced over to see Lady Cynthia standing beside her, cupping a cigarette on a long jade holder. In the flickering candlelight Cynthia looked- well, sever was the first word that came to mind. Dark hair like Lizzie’s, but cut more sharply. His eyebrows were dark and pronounced, and weren’t quite balanced out by her small and brightly-lacquered lips. 

“I don’t fucking know,” Lizzie muttered, tired enough to curse. (Tired enough to stop trying to sound like she was a street girl from Birmingham. Everyone already knew who and what she was, so why did her accent matter?)

Lady Cynthia smiled. “Aren’t men vain creatures? All these pictures of fathers and sons, but none of the mothers who brought them here. We’re the mothers of England, with nothing to show for it.”

Lizzie thought Lady Cynthia could speak for her-fucking-self about being the mother of England.

“It’s just-” Lizzie didn’t think she knew enough to critique artistic subjects, so she settled on, “They could at least use a color other than brown.”

“It’s the age of the pigments, and the preservation,” said Mosley from behind them. “Ladies. Happy to see you’re becoming fast friends, I’m sure.”

Lady Cynthia smiled at her husband, but Mosley’s eyes never left Lizzie’s. “Though I agree- so many of us could use more color and beauty in our lives.”

 _He wanted her._ She’d known it since her birthday party, had felt his eyes on her like so many before. He wanted her, and she hated him for it, because he didn’t want her out of -well, even lust. He wanted her because she was Tommy’s, and because it hurt both of them that Mosley had had her before. 

(At least, she suspected it bothered Tom. It wasn’t like he fucking _said_ anything to her.)

Over the years a lot of men had wanted Lizzie. She lived with it every day. But Mosley enjoyed her emotional discomfort in a way that no other man really had. Oh, plenty had wanted her to cry, and plenty had liked to smack her around, but this one- this one man- cared more about leaving marks on her soul than on her skin. 

“Your husband is quite the collector of art, it seems,” said Mosley, carrying on a conversation as though his wife wasn’t standing right there. “A few of the Master’s, and- can we call it an excess?- an excess of ...family portraiture. He must keep the pictures of you in the bedroom, where he can most enjoy them.”

 _Fuck you,_ Lizzie wanted to shout. She wanted to toss her drink in his face and walk out, but she couldn’t. She couldn’t because apparently the fate of England was at fucking stake, and she’d almost be willing to leave England to hang, but that would only put Tommy’s neck in the fucking noose. 

“He has the real thing,” she said quietly, murmuring to Mosley over the lip of champagne flute. “He doesn’t need paintings to admire me.”

Mosley’s eyes flashed, but he caught himself quickly. “Cimmy and I were planning a visit to the new Courtauld Gallery later in the week, while most of Society is still out in the country,” he said. “I’d love for you to join us. Would Thursday afternoon suit? It seems your husband has been so busy that he hasn’t had time for either of us.”

“I’ll check my diary,” said Lizzie coolly. 

“Do you sketch? Or paint?” Lady Cynthia asked, trying to patch over the awkward gap in the conversation. 

“I’m afraid not,” said Lizzie, reminding herself that circumstances often landed perfectly nice women with men they didn’t particularly agree with, or even like. Maybe Lady Cynthia was one of those ladies. Probably she didn’t mean to ask these kinds of fucking questions. 

“Mrs. Shelby has… other skills,” said Mosley. 

“I was given watercolor lessons,” said Lady Cynthia, desperately trying to keep the discussion above water. “But I never did get the hang of it, I’m afraid.”

“Our school wasn’t much concerned with art,” said Lizzie shortly. It had barely been able to afford chalk. 

“Hmm,” said Mosley. “Well, please do let us know about Thursday. We can pick you up at half one.”

“Thank you,” Lizzie muttered, but Mosley was already turning away. 

“I used to like that about him,” said Lady Cynthia quietly as Mosley wove his way back through the crowd, a head taller than most of the other men. “How forceful he was. He made me feel special.”

Lizzie didn’t know what to say to that. In her experience men like Mosley didn’t care a fig for anyone except themselves, and men who made you feel special only tricked something else out of you in the end. 

“You really can come to the gallery with us,” said Lady Cynthia. “Most of the other Parliamentary wives won’t come out with me any more, not since Mosley announced this new party.”

“They won’t like you any better if you’re seen with me,” said Lizzie bluntly. “I’m married to a social climber, apparently, who doesn’t know how to com-port himself around his betters.” She popped the ‘p’ in _comport,_ still angry about all the cruel things she’d heard women say about Tom. Some of it he deserved, and none of it bothered him, but it bothered _her._ It bothered Lizzie because these Society ladies _knew_ she could hear them, and so they talked all the louder for it. 

“I don’t care,” said Lady Cynthia. “I’ll have someone to talk to. Even if all we talk about is the color brown.”

The old-fashioned, prancing dance that had been taking place at the other end of the room came to a halt, and Lizzie and Lady Cynthia turned to face the rest of the room. Tommy was in conversation with the fellow who owned the _Daily Mail,_ and didn’t even glance her way. 

Mr. Pennington oozed his way out of the crowd and nodded to Lady Cynthia and Lizzie. 

“Mrs. Shelby, you looked so discontented. Would you care to dance?”

It was better than nothing, she supposed, and so far Pennington had managed to keep his hands to himself. After several parties with the upper classes, Lizzie was realizing that ‘hands to himself’ was something of an achievement for the gentry. 

“Of course, Mr. Pennington.” 

The orchestra was playing the opening bars of a foxtrot, one of the fast ones brought over from the States. She’d danced to the tune before, usually in a sweaty, half-lit dancehall, and it took Lizzie a moment to decide if she’d rather be there again. 

It was simpler- go to work, turn a few tricks, and then walk home along the railroad tracks. It was out of her way to follow the tracks instead of the road, but overfilled coal cars often lost pieces here and there as they turned through the city, and any free coal was a positive thing. Things had been simple, but it had been the stark simplicity of piecemeal survival, and Lizzie wouldn’t go back to that. 

She stepped into Mr. Pennington’s space, took his outstretched hand, and followed him into the spinning, bouncing rhythm. Lizzie liked jazz, liked to dance, and wished she could dance more often with people who weren’t fascists. Or drunk. A sober non-fascist would really be nice-

And just as she wished, one appeared. Tommy tapped on Pennington’s shoulder and slid into his place, pulling Lizzie just that much closer to him without skipping a beat. 

“Next time,” said Pennington with a nod, and then Tommy and Lizzie were dancing again. 

“Fuck, I missed you,” she murmured as they twisted to her right, following the swaying, shifting pattern of the crowd. 

“Been here the whole time,” said Tommy, his pale eyes looking past her and into the throng of people beyond.

“Talking.”

“Working.”

Tommy’s eyes flicked to hers, and he gave her his blink-and-you’ve-missed-it smirk. “Maybe Mrs. Featherwythe was right.”

“What?” 

He spun her, and she laughed, and then came back to his arms again. (Somehow, whatever happened in her life, she seemed to end up back against Tom again. It was one of the most comforting realizations she’d ever had.)

“Didn’t she try to... fucking scold you for liking me too much?”

“Hmm,” said Lizzie as they turned again, her feet following his, their bodies naturally adjusting to mimic the other’s angle. “Maybe the company is just lacking, and you only win by comparison.”

He raised an eyebrow and bent his face closer to hers. “I didn’t win on a fucking technicality last night.”

Lizzie pressed her lips to his, a poacher’s kiss. “You’re damn right about that.”

They danced until the song ended, and then Tommy made the whole ritualistic show of escorting her back off the floor. 

“When can we leave?” Lizzie asked, covering her words with a glass of lemonade. 

A casual bystander wouldn’t have noticed the tightening of Tommy’s mouth that betrayed his grimace, but she’d known him too long to miss the tells. “Can’t sneak off this time,” he told her. “Mosley already suspects that I’m not as loyal to the party as he’d like.”

“He’s not used to dealing with people as smart as he is,” she said. “It makes him uncomfortable.”

“Everything fucking about this makes me uncomfortable,” Tommy muttered. 

“Yeah? Well I’ve been invited to a goddamn art gallery with him and ‘Cimmy’ on Thursday.” 

Tommy’s eyes narrowed. “He wants you.”

“Yes.”

Another of Mosley’s cronies from the Foreign Office came over to talk with Tommy, and he shot her a look over his shoulder as he walked away. It was hot and frustrated and _open,_ and she held it to her for the rest of the night as she danced and drank and missed her babies. Whether he liked it or not, she did know Tommy well enough to read his face. 

The hours ticked by, and by old-fashioned Society standards the party came to a close fairly early- Tommy and Lizzie found their coats and walked out to the Bentley a little after two in the morning. 

“Getting fucking old,” said Lizzie on a puff of cigarette smoke and steaming breath as Tommy held the passenger door open for her. “The dance clubs used to go ‘til four, and then we had to put up the chairs for the cleaning women. Now I just want my own fucking bed.”

Tommy didn’t play along with her small talk. He turned the engine over and motored through London’s dark streets, working their way back towards Kensington and Tommy’s apartment. He stayed there during the week most nights when Parliament was in session, and Lizzie hadn’t seen it before. 

Even this late there was a doorman, and another footman in the lift. Both of them nodded and murmured “Mr. Shelby” politely, _all without looking at Lizzie._ She wanted to go home all over again, because- because Tommy could order any girl he wanted, he used to do it right in front of her, a new girl every week. To these footmen she was another face on another body; another whore for Tommy to fuck. 

When the doors to the lift opened on his floor, Tommy put his hand to the small of her back and she shied away, stepping quickly out and around and away from his reach. She’d made that deal with him. She’d known there would be other women. Lizzie had just thought- well, she’d hoped that eventually it wouldn’t hurt so much.

He was in number eighteen. His key turned in the lock, and then they were stepping inside. 

In many ways it was much like his study back in Arrow House. The furniture was square and masculine, the room smelled like whiskey and lemony wood-wax, and where a dining table would have stood for a normal kind of man, yet another messy desk dominated the space. A small kitchen was shaped like an L on the right side of the room, and a reading lamp, radio, and armchair were arranged on the other side beneath a window. A short hallway led back to what Lizzie assumed was the bedroom and toilet. 

Tommy stepped inside and clicked on a green Tiffany lamp, setting his gloves and keys on the small walnut inlay table just inside the door. Lizzie took that as permission to explore too, turning on glass-shaded lamps. 

_How many other women had done this? How many women had been here before her?_

There was a photograph of Ruby and Charles hanging over the desk. Ruby had only been a baby, all tufted dark hair and big owl eyes. She’d been propped in Charlie’s lap on one of the patio chairs, and Charles had _just_ looked down at his sister when the photographer finally took the picture. As a result Charles' expression was slightly blurred, but Lizzie could make out the impossible fawn-like eyelashes and his parted cupids-bow lips. 

“I’m not here much,” said Tommy. It was the first thing he’d said to her since confirming Mosley’s interest in her hours ago. 

Lizzie shrugged. It was her turn to retreat into taciturn silence. 

“Want a drink? Tommy asked. “Lav’s back there, if you’d rather wash up for bed.”

Lizzie padded down the dark hallway to the toilet, finding it sparse and clean and unimpressive. When she was through wiping off her makeup she found Tommy in the bedroom shucking off his trousers and tossing them into a corner by the dresser. The bedroom was small and simple, and there was no lamp on the stand by her side of the bed. A small closet revealed a few extra Parliament-style suits, socks and shorts were in the dresser, and… that was it. 

Lizzie took the lone chair and unbuckled her shoes, kicking them off and arching her feet as far as they could go. They were better than the secondhand heels she’d once worn, but nothing could truly make up for hours of standing in heels of any kind. 

“I hate him,” said Tommy, sitting at the end of the bed. He had his elbows braced on his knees, and his head hung low, forcing him to look up at her through his dark eyelashes. “I hate him for wanting what’s mine.”

So that’s why he’d spent the rest of the night pouting. Because someone else wanted to play with his toy. 

Lizzie pulled her legs up into the chair with her, pressing her thighs to her breasts and resting her chin on her knees. “I thought this was what you wanted,” she said eventually. “For me to find a way to get information for you.”

Tom’s hands clenched, his knuckles briefly going white. “I do need information,” he said at last. “But I told you never again. At the Derby. Never again.”

He had. It was the first time she’d ever heard him say, “I’m sorry,” and she’d only heard it once more since then.

“You want me to go with him,” said Lizzie. “To the gallery. Or wherever he wants to take me.”

A muscle clenched in Tommy’s jaw. “It’s your decision,” he said at last. 

“Couldn’t we walk away from this?” Lizzie asked, more than half-wistful. “Go home. You go back to Labour, I’ll be with the kids.”

“It isn’t that simple.”

Lizzie glanced back up at him before pressing her forehead into her knees again. “It never is with you, Tom.”

“I’m already in it this much, Lizzie. If I leave the Fascists I lose any influence I might have with them, lose the ability to stall their progress. The people who elected me will lose fucking faith, and then-

“And then more people will die, Lizzie, because Winston fucking Churchill didn’t want to give the fascists a fucking martyr for the cause.”

“Tommy Shelby with a cause,” said Lizzie lightly. Ada had been right. “But I think it’s more than that. It’s personal for you, now. You’ve never lost a war yet, and if you walked away, it would be a surrender.”

Tommy was staring down at the carpet, his eyes hot and every line of his body tense. 

“So instead of Mosley being a martyr for the cause, it’s fucking me. I’m the sacrifice.”

“It’s your decision,” said Tommy, and he still couldn’t look at her. All the things they’d been through, all the fights they’d had, and this was what made him turn away. It hurt. It fucking hurt, because even when she’d been a coal-stained whore, Tommy Shelby had always been able to look her in the fucking eyes.

“Yeah. My fucking decision.” 

Lizzie rolled her head slightly, back and forth across the bony planes of her knees. It had never been a decision, really. She’d fallen into whoring the way little kids fell into the canal, and instead of drowning, she’d swum along in her self-made fucking bed. 

“Do I have to fuck him?” 

She didn’t want to. She desperately didn’t want to, didn’t want to go back to being a useful cunt, didn’t want to see him leer, to know-

“Up to you. You’ve done it before.”

Lizzie’s head snapped up. “Fuck you. Fuck you, you’re the one who got us into this, not me. You’re the one who couldn’t leave well enough alone, who brought that man back into my life and our children’s home. That wasn’t me.”

Tom sat on the end of the bed, his focus on her and his face impassive. She fucking hated him for his passivity, for his needling, for constantly reminding her that to him, and to society, all she’d ever be was a two-bit whore.

“You’ve known what I was from the beginning. You know that, right? What I was. What I am, I suppose. Just like I knew what you did, and chose this life anyway.” Before he could protest she rushed on, “And I know you didn’t choose me, Tom. But- I guess you knew, before you married me. And if you can’t forget it, I wish you’d just keep your mouth shut and let me. Because I’m doing the best I fucking can.”

She was standing now, shouting at him and not caring if the neighbors heard. She could take the car, probably, or catch a cab to the station and take the next train to Birmingham. Leave him to his plots and his apartment that was filled with the ghosts of other women. 

“Where are you going?” Tommy asked, following her down the hall to the door, where she was jamming her arms in her coat sleeves. 

“Home,” she said. “I’m not going to stay here for you to fucking-” _hurt me_ “-insult me about my past when _you’re_ the one with a whole other apartment, and doormen who can’t look me in the eye. How stupid do you think I am? So I’m going home to my own bed, where the only woman who’s been in it is me.”

“Are you done?” he asked. 

The noise she made in response was embarrassing. A half-sob, half-growl of complete and utter fury fell from her mouth, and Tommy took another step towards her. 

“Lizzie, come back to bed. Come on. I- I’m sorry, alright? I didn’t mean it. Come back to bed. There aren’t any trains now; I’ll drive you to the station in the morning myself if you still want to go.”

Lizzie tugged her coat more tightly around herself and closed her eyes, as though those defenses could block out the soothing patter of his words. He always did this, always talked his way out of any trouble, and it shouldn’t work but it _did._

Rough hands cupped her cheeks, but she still didn’t open her eyes. “I haven’t brought other women here. That’s my bed. Now it’s our bed.”

She peeked at him through her lashes. 

“I promise. I don’t bring women here. Nobody but you. The fucking doormen don’t look any women in the face, alright? It’s just how they’re trained. So come back to bed, eh? And we can talk about it.”

Lizzie let herself be towed back to the bedroom. Tommy carefully helped her out of her coat and dress, and let her crawl under the sheets before sliding in himself. 

“Light on or off?” he asked, and it was so bizarre in its normalcy. 

“Off,” she said hoarsely, and then the room was cast in deep shadow. 

For a few moments they lay there in silence, both of them on their backs, simply breathing in the cool night air and listening to a distant dog barking from somewhere down the street.

“I hate him,” said Tommy abruptly. “And I hate this fucking situation. But I could never hate you.”

“You did,” said Lizzie, heartsore and exhausted. “You did hate me. Resented that you’d gotten me pregnant, that I hadn’t wanted an abortion. Filled the gap that Grace left, but only in everyone else’s eyes.”

Tommy didn’t deny it. Instead he pulled her to him, shoving his arm under her neck so that her cheek was pillowed in the joint of his shoulder. 

“I’m sorry,” he said eventually, stroking a broad hand up and down her back. “I really fucking am.”

Lizzie huffed a breath into his skin, hating how much this comforted her. (How it always had.) She trusted him on an animal level, trusted his hands and body and warmth in a way that nobody should ever trust his scheming mind. 

“You were right. This is personal for me, with Mosley,” he said into the darkness, his voice already going sleep-low. “He’s coming for what’s mine, and that includes you, Lizzie. He wants you because it’ll hurt me.”

“Will it?” she asked, some kind of strange hope and horror blooming in her chest. If he hurt that meant he _cared,_ and if he cared that meant- that meant- she hadn’t been hoping for no reason. 

Tommy’s fingers tightened on her hip before deliberately loosening again. He rolled, facing her in the darkness, their heads inches apart on the very corners of their respective pillows. “How can you fucking ask me that?” he hissed, his voice low and intense and his words coming fast. “How can you fucking ask if it’ll hurt me, Lizzie. You’re my fucking wife.”

Lizzie sort-of shrugged. She thought it was obvious how she could ask that, because for so long it had been painfully clear that ally and co-parent was her role, not that of wife. 

“If he hurts you,” said Tommy. “You come home with a mark on you- I’ll find a way to kill him. I fucking swear it. I’ve seen every way there is for a man to die; I can find a new one for him.”

Threats of violence rumbled sleep-rough into the darkness shouldn’t have made her feel better, but they did. She’d been on her own for long enough to accept whatever scraps of protection were thrown her way, and these weren’t scraps. This was a whole fucking blanket. 

“”Don’t say that,” Lizzie mumbled, her exhaustion and heartache slurring her words as sleep took her under. “You’re always too late. So just… don’t say anything. Kay?” 

He’d been too late at the Derby. He’d been too late when she’d gotten pregnant with Ruby, only marrying her after the baby had been born and his campaign had gotten off the ground. He’d waited too long to start including her in fucking anything. He was always too late with her; she’d always been aware that she came last. 

“I won’t be,” said Tommy, stroking the back of his knuckles over her jaw just as Lizzie tipped over the edge into sleep. “Not this time.”

* * *

I would that war were what men dream:

A crackling fire, a cleansing flame,

That it might leap the space between

And lap up London and its shame.

\--Excerpt from _“The Pavement”_ by Francis Brett Young, 1918


	9. Bombardment

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _Previously on The Last War:_
> 
> Mosley makes his interest in Lizzie pretty explicitly known, and Tommy asks that Lizzie use Mosley’s interest to get close to him and gather information. Tommy asks this in a particularly brusque, pissed off manner, and he and Lizzie have a fight. Tommy eventually apologized, but Lizzie tells him that he’s always just a little bit too late.

The best people possess a feeling for beauty, the courage to take risks, the discipline to tell the truth, the capacity for sacrifice. Ironically, their virtues make them vulnerable; they are often wounded, sometimes destroyed. --Ernest Hemingway

* * *

Mosley wouldn’t stop touching her. Oh, he hadn’t done anything improper. He’d been every inch a gentleman, but it didn’t stop Lizzie’s skin from crawling. He’d held her hand as she’d entered and exited the car on the way to the gallery, he’d put his hand to the small of her back as they’d walked up the steps, and once inside he’d winged his arms at both her and Lady Cynthia. 

Lizzie reminded herself that she was playing a part. She was doing this for her children, doing this because it was the fucking right thing to do. So nobody else could be hurt by this monster of a man. 

“What do you think, my dear?” he asked as they stepped into the beautifully lit central gallery. Huge, arching windows glittered overhead, filling the room with diffuse white light. Paintings hung on the walls, suspended on sturdy wires, and beneath them the wooden floors gleamed. “Is it colorful enough for you?”

“It’s beautiful,” said Lizzie, and it was. She loved the heavy guilt frames, and the pale walls, and the wonderful wonderful light. She’d be happy to spend an afternoon here, if not for the company. 

“Only made better by the presence of women such as yourselves,” said Mosley, gently steering them towards the far wall.

Lizzie shook free of his arm and moved a few steps away, idly studying the painting. There were two little people in the foreground, strange and round and misshapen in the way that people were in very old paintings, but they were almost incidental compared to the vast landscape that loomed over them. Blue and tan mountains stretched nearly to the top of the frame but also receded away into the distance, fading on and on into a clear, pale blue sky. The kind that happened on windy summer days when the clouds were too high to matter and thinned by the wind. 

“A favorite of yours?” Mosley asked from behind her. 

“I hadn’t seen it before,” said Lizzie. “But it looks like you could get lost in those mountains.”

“Quite,” said Mosley. 

They wandered through the rest of the first room, looking at colorful impressionist pieces and the faded brownish (yes, brown) of several other Masters. 

The next room in the Gallery was painted a faded rose color, but was otherwise identical to the first room. Lizzie and Cimmy wandered together, occasionally commenting on the colors, or the subject of a piece. It was a little bit like being in a library: quiet and serious but not quite holy; surrounded by knowledge that was valuable, but wasn’t your own. 

“I’ve always rather liked that one,” said Mosley when he rejoined him in front of a Van Gogh self-portrait.

“It’s very colorful, but sad,” said Lady Cynthia. “But I like how his paintings are all… bright.”

“He was quite sad,” said Mosley. “He cut off his own ear, you know. After his ...artistic friend and business partner decided to leave him for greener pastures.” 

Mosley’s hand was on the small of Lizzie’s back again, and she hoped he didn’t notice her skin going all-over goosebumps. He knew- if not all of it, he at least suspected that something was going on with Tommy. 

“Hence the bandage in the painting,” said Mosley, still talking about the Van Gogh. “Though I don’t think an ear is enough to pay for that kind of betrayal, do you, hmm?”

“I’d quite hate to have mine cut off,” said Lady Cynthia, patting the fingerwaved hair that currently covered her own ears. 

“The most interesting thing is that the poor chap didn’t even send the ear to his former friend. He sent it to a local whore.”

Lizzie’s stomach clenched, and she only managed to follow Cimmy and Mosley into the next room by breathing slowly through her nose and out through her mouth. They needed to finish this. As much as she hated it, Tommy had been right. They needed to find whatever it was that Tom could use against Mosley, and they needed to get it quickly. And apparently, in order to accomplish that, she needed Mosley to trust her. (Or at the very least, to not suspect her.)

Lizzie needed Mosley to think that things were rocky between her and Tommy, and that she was still attracted to him, the weasel. 

The light had shifted in the gallery by the time they’d looped through all of the rooms and back into the grand entryway. A massive set of marble stairs spiraled up the center of the space, coiling around and around in a snail-shell spiral of pale stone and floral wrought-iron bars. 

“I wonder what’s up there,” said Lizzie, craning her neck unfashionably back as she admired the winding stairs. She was using Mosley’s arm for balance, and he preened under her attention, standing up that much straighter to accentuate his height. 

“Not open to the public,” he said. “A statuary, I believe. But of course, we aren’t the public. Would you like to go look?”

“Yes,” said Lizzie, sending him a version of her best, “you’re the most interesting thing I’ve seen all day” smile. 

She and Cimmy followed Mosley up the winding steps to the second floor, where more large, spacious rooms opened off of a central hall. A few mysterious shapes were still shrouded with sheets, and a few lonely handcarts rested against the wall, but it too was a beautiful space. One room was full of wildly blown glass, the colors and sheen almost making it look liquid. A collection of Chinese pottery and ceramics held Cimmy’s attention, and then they were inside what could once have been a ballroom, and they were looking on the faces of gods. 

Lizzie didn’t know who had carved the statues, or where the stone had come from. It was all pale, perfect, terrible beauty. There was a man in a plumed helmet riding a horse, and the statue was life-sized, at least twelve feet high. A woman with an owl on her shoulder reclined on her bed of stone, and- and there was a whole pantheon up there, casting long shadows over the pale floors. So many stories Lizzie had never learned. Tommy would love it. 

A few well-dressed people moved through the statuary with them, and along the edges of the room Lizzie watched a woman work- she could only assume she was some kind of clipboard-wielding curator. 

Lady Cynthia found Lizzie in front of a statue of two people. A man and a woman.  _ Very definitely  _ a man and a woman. The woman’s face was…pulled in terrible ecstasy, maybe. Frozen forever in a wide smile, but with perfect stone tears rolling down her cheeks. The man’s arms were wrapped around her waist, and his face was horrible: regret and sadness and horror, all at once. From the woman’s fingers sprouted thin leafy branches, and where her feet should be, Lizzie could see the trunk of a tree. 

She didn’t need to know the story to understand the emotions, and maybe that was the best part of art. It transcended time and space and language, and she could guess what had happened herself, even centuries later. The lady was transforming, and somehow the man was to blame. 

“Daphne and Apollo,” said Lady Cynthia quietly. “He was the god of the sun, and she was a nymph.”

“And he wouldn’t take no for an answer,” added Lizzie ruefully, wondering how the artist had managed to catch the subtle delicacy of a tear sliding down a curved cheek. 

“Most men don’t,” said Cimmy sadly. “Mosley won’t, with you.”

Lizzie glanced across the room at Lady Cynthia’s husband. He was talking to Mr. Hitler, his German counterpart. She wondered how long he’d planned to use this outing as a cover. It wasn’t that much different from what Tommy did, she supposed. But instead of meeting in scrap metal yards and Birmingham pub back rooms, Mosley met people in unopened art galleries. 

“I don’t- it’s not-” said Lizzie, not sure what to say. She wanted to reassure the other woman, but she also didn’t want to blow Tommy’s whole plan out of the water because she’d felt bad for Mosley’s wife. 

_ Collateral damage,  _ she could hear Tommy saying.  _ End justifies the means, Lizzie girl.  _

She was even thinking like him now. Christ. 

“It doesn’t matter,” said Lady Cynthia sadly. “If he wants you, he’ll get you.”

“My husband is a little like that, too,” said Lizzie, unsure of where the conversation would go. She could almost make out what Mosley and Hitler were talking about during the lulls in her own conversation. Something about- a new law, maybe. Redefining… citizenship? 

“Hmm?” Lizzie said, realizing Cimmy had asked her something.

“I asked if you were still- ah, cordial. With Mr. Shelby.”

“Not fucking recently,” said Lizzie darkly, and it was the truth, but… different from the way Lady Cynthia would hear it. Since Christmas tensions had been running high with her and Tommy. Their relationship wasn’t necessarily  _ bad,  _ but it certainly couldn’t be called cordial. Not anymore. 

“I’m sorry,” said Lady Cynthia.

Lizzie wished she wasn’t caught up in this. Cimmy seemed like a nice lady, even if she was thick as a brick. 

“You should go along with it,” said Lady Cynthia hurriedly as Mosley shook Hitler’s hand and turned back towards them. “Once he has what he wants he’ll go away.”

“Ladies,” said Mosley, strolling back. “Shall we stop for a drink on the way home?”

~~~

Tommy and Lizzie had taken the evening train back to Warwickshire. Henry had picked them up from the station, and now they were back in the kitchen, staring broodingly into the icebox for some kind of supper. 

They hadn’t talked. It wasn’t something either of them had wanted to get into on the train. 

“Bacon sandwich?” Lizzie suggested.

“Do we have any tomatoes?”

“Only tinned.”

Tommy made a face. 

“Well, I’ll have bacon and lettuce,” said Lizzie. “And for a man who has avoided food for as long as you have, you’re surprisingly picky.”

“I’m not picky,” Tommy huffed, pulling a frying pan down and setting it on the stove next to a saucepan where he’d already set whiskey to warming. “I just know how a bacon sandwich is supposed to go.”

“Hmm,” said Lizzie, pulling a loaf of bread from the breadbox and finding a knife. Tommy was laying slices of bacon into the hot pan, where it sizzled and crackled and smelled like- well, home. Occasionally he stirred the water, whiskey, and honey mixture, and it was comfortable. Domestic and comfortable. Lizzie set four slices of bread into the oven to toast, and then stepped back, leaning against the counter. 

“Do you want to hear about the gallery?”

Tommy shrugged, and then nodded, a study in contradictions. 

“Mosley met with ah- the German man. Hitler. They were talking about some kind of law. Something about citizenship? Birthright stuff?”

Tommy nodded again. “I know that.”

“How was I supposed to fucking know that?” asked Lizzie. “What is it?”

“Mosley’s bloody law of British Primacy,” said Tommy, flipping the bacon with the tip of a chef’s knife. (It wasn’t hard to picture him doing this in the trenches: having a fry up with the men on either side, the bacon slowly cooking over a candle-sized flame.) “A bill he wants me to help sponsor.”

“It sounds terrible,” said Lizzie. 

“It is,” Tommy agreed darkly. “Guarenteed to ruin my fucking career.”

“Well, that’s all I’ve got,” said Lizzie. “Other than Lady Cynthia telling me that I should give it up to Mosley. According to her, after that he’ll leave me alone.”

Tommy turned away from the stove to look at her. “She’s fine with it.”

“Resigned, more like,” said Lizzie. 

Tommy put the first batch of bacon on a plate and dropped four more pieces into the greasy pan. Lizzie rescued their toast from the oven and slathered happy yellow butter over it. 

“Did he ask to see you again?” Tommy asked. 

“He reserved a dance at Lady Palmer’s party this Friday,” she said. “But nothing until then. I’m fucking thankful for it, Tom. I want to see our kids, and ride my horse. Be home. I don’t know how you do it.”

He shrugged, flipped the bacon. “You get used to it.”

“Do you… like it?” she finally asked. “The double talk, and the judging, and everyone’s schemes. The greed.”

Tommy squeezed a lemon into the toddy and then poured the contents into two mugs. “Here,” he said, and she took the warm cup from him. 

“I’ve always enjoyed it,” he said shortly. “It wasn’t a game, the stakes were too real for that. Sabini, the Russians. But it’s like… swimming,” he said finally. “When you realize you can take a little more. Your muscles can go a little further. You’re this fucking close to drowning, but in the end, you fucking make it. You’re alive. You’re alive, and they aren’t. And the next time you go out, you want to go further.”

He shrugged again, killed the burner, and started assembling their sandwiches. “Parliament was more of the same, at first. Deals, trade. Power. I kind of enjoyed it, then. The unpapered soldier among all those pedigreed fucking peers.”

He smiled a little, without any humor in it, and passed Lizzie a plate. “But this shit with Mosley?” Tommy shook his head. “I want it done. Over.”

“Me too,” said Lizzie quietly, nibbling along the corner of her dinner. “It needs to be done. I just wish I wasn’t the one to do it. But I took the king’s shilling, didn’t I? I took the king’s fucking shilling.”

~~~

“Go powder your nose,” said Tommy as they stepped through the door of Lady Palmer’s Mayfair home. 

“What?” Lizzie whispered, shucking out of her coat and passing it to the footman. 

“Can’t go in together,” said Tommy, shooting her a look that Lizzie hoped was for the benefit of anyone watching, and not her. “Flounce off. Act mad at me.”

She wouldn’t have to act mad. He could have told her this in the car. Then again, this was Tommy. He had a long history of not sharing his plans until they’d already been enacted.

Lizzie wandered down the hall until she found the toilet and stepped inside. She took a few minutes to fiddle with her lipstick and wish away the tired circles that were forming under her eyes. Ruby had shrieked and screamed when Lizzie had gone to kiss her goodbye, and though Charles had been much more quiet, he’d still radiated angry-child energy the way Sylph radiated heat. They needed to finish this- more than ever, they needed to finish it. 

_ What if that means fucking him?  _ Lizzie wondered to herself as she blotted her lipstick one more time. 

It was a thought she’d spent more than a week shying away from. She didn’t want to do it, and she didn’t want to think about it- mostly because she suspected that if it came down to her pride or Mosley’s defeat, she’d damn her dignity and drag Mosley right down with her. She’d always been practical. She’d prided herself on it. 

Task completed and ten minutes wasted, Lizzie walked towards the parlor, where gentlemen in dark evening dress loitered and where women in jewels and feathers flitted like birds, colorful and bright in their fancy guilt cage. 

Lady Cynthia was talking to another Parliamentary wife near the doorway, and Lizzie crossed to join them. She didn’t look around for Tommy like she usually did, and she didn’t feel the warmth of his gaze on hers. 

“Lizzie, I was wondering where you were,” said Cimmy. “You remember Lady Rothermere?”

“Of course,” said Lizzie, nodding politely. Probably she was meant to curtsy, but fuck it. She had just as much right to be here as anyone else in the room. 

“We were discussing the article printed this morning in my husband’s paper. Did you see it?”

Lady Cynthia took a sip of her drink. “She’s referring to the bit about union organizers siding with your husband’s parliamentary position. Before the Recess he said that those who lost money during the Crash shouldn’t be allowed to take it out on their workers.”

“That sounds… surprisingly selfless of him,” said Lizzie. As someone affected by the crash, and as a factory owner, it was almost shocking to hear Tommy speaking out against his own interests. Then again, he’d always known how to say the things people  _ wanted  _ to hear. 

Lady Rothermere gave Lady Cynthia a knowing look. “One of those, is he?” she asked. “Let’s get you some sherry. You can tell me about it.”

“Oh, I’m alright,” said Lizzie. She fucking hated sherry. Be wine or be whiskey. Pick one. 

“Does he watch how much you drink?” Lady Rothermere asked, leaning closer to Lizzie. “It’s Mosley’s idea. That German man told him about it. Mr. Hitler won’t be seen with women, won’t drink more alcohol than it takes to raise a toast to his motherland. ‘An appearance of total dedication to the rise of a nationalistic government,’ is what he called it. Rothermere and Mosley and your Mr. Shelby are to appear entirely composed in public.”

“And we belong to them,” said Cimmy, taking a defiant gulp of her drink. “So our husbands are to keep us composed, too.”

Lizzie would like to see Tommy wear a straight fucking face and tell her to lighten up on the booze. Pot, meet kettle. 

“I’m not the one who can’t control themselves,” said Lady Cynthia, her thick brows drawn tight. “Oswald was having an affair with my younger sister.”

“What happened?” asked Lizzie. Women were the same the world over, it seemed: put a glass in their hands and soon enough they’d tell you every stupid thing their man had done. It was a little bit reassuring to know the money and privilege didn’t change some things. 

“Sent her to Germany for finishing,” said Cimmy. “Not that it matters. He shags opera singers and waitresses. Anyone really.”

She caught Lizzie’s eye and raised one eyebrow. Lizzie shook her head and said, “Don’t want to. Got one of my own.”

“The way your husband looks at you sometimes,” said Lady Rothermere. “It’s… savage. I wonder how he got elected, a man like him. Harold said it was entirely legitimate.”

“Who’s legitimate?” asked a nasal American voice. Lizzie turned, and there was fucking Gina. She’d been turning up in odd corners, and Lizzie wondered if something else was afoot. Tommy had told her that he and Michael had reached some sort of agreement, and that Grey International wouldn’t be a problem for long. All the same, Lizzie wouldn’t put much of anything past Gina. She didn’t need Polly’s inner eye to know that Gina was bad fucking news.

“Tommy is legitimate,” said Lizzie shortly. 

“Hmm. Just like Michael,” said Gina. 

“Like your fucking kid,” Lizzie muttered, turning her head and mumbling enough that only Gina could hear her. 

“Not a concern,” said Gina breezily, gesturing to an attentive footman, who brought her a glass of sherry. “Accident, you see.”

Cimmy was watching the exchange with wide eyes. 

Lizzie made a mental note to get Tommy to call the hospital. He had spies everywhere, including inside the police stations and hospitals. He could find out if she’d ever really been pregnant at all.

“Should you be drinking like that if-” Cimmy began as Gina tossed the sherry back. 

“Yes,” said Gina, just a hair too loudly. 

“How do you two know each other?” Lady Rothermere asked, looking between Lizzie and Gina with a raised brow. 

“She married into the family,” said Lizzie, at the same time as Gina answered, “Our husbands work together.”

“Ah,” said Lady Rothermere. 

Before the conversation could devolve any further, Lady Palmer called her guests into the dining room, pairing up ladies and gentlemen as she went. Lizzie, with a lack of surprise, was paired with Mosley. He pulled out her chair for her, and bushed the tips of his fingers over her neck, and Lizzie  _ did not let herself  _ look for Tommy. She also didn’t let herself shiver. She knew she was being played with, and she didn’t like it. 

Gina was on Mosley’s other side. Lizzie tried to ignore everyone and focus on her soup. Eventually, though, the conversation turns from social niceties and gossip to politics, the way it always seemed to do. 

“Your uncle was a great proponent of American Prohibition, I believe?” Mosley was saying. 

Gina delicately placed her spoon back in her bowl and nodded. “He was. He thinks… oh, that a lack of control is synonymous with a lack of refinement. Sober workers can build a better product, and because they lack control, he lobbied for the federal government to step in.”

“I quite like that,” said Mosley. “How you phrased it. ‘A lack of control is synonymous with a lack of refinement.’ I think that’s exactly it, and why we need a stronger central government dedicated to helping the common man. Don’t you agree, Mrs. Shelby?”

Lizzie plunked her spoon down and looked past Mosley at Gina. “Seems hypocritical to me,” she said. “Working men aren’t allowed to drink, but the men who control the company, and all those men’s livelihoods can get snockered over their expensive lunch.”

“Uncle Henry is a teetotaler,” said Gina daintily. 

“But that was his choice,” said Lizzie. “And he took it away from everyone else.”

“Do you think our ancestors argued about such things?” Mosley asked as their soup plates were removed and lightly garnished roast perch were placed in their stead. “Did they argue with the chieftain who suggested that they roast their meat, or attach stone tips to the ends of their arrows?”

“Interesting,” said Gina pertly. “So you think that more absolute control allows the government to avoid those who would argue against progress.”

“Yes,” said Mosley, dabbing at the corners of his mouth with his napkin. “Just because we’ve always done things one way does not mean that they should alway continue to proceed in that manner.”

It was all horse shit. Everything coming out of their expensive, pedigreed mouths was shit, because Lizzie  _ knew  _ men like this, she knew what they did with power. All they wanted to fucking do was- was to keep power for themselves, and to make it even more difficult for someone else to come along and challenge them. It wasn’t the working man who was afraid of change, it was this crowd of peacock-eating cunts. They were afraid that any redistribution of power would send them tumbling off of their high pedestals. 

It was the same with men and women. Men were so fucking scared that if women had collective power, they would start treating men the way women had been treated for a thousand fucking years. 

( _ Wouldn’t it be novel if everyone treated each other so well that no group needed to dream of revenge? _ )

“How do you feel about unions?” Lizzie asked, remembering to turn her fork tine-side down to indicate she’d finished with her plate. “Tommy had some trouble with a union organizer a year or so ago.”

It was true. It was all true, and she’d talked with worse men about less interesting subjects. (She’d been a professional. Maybe she still was.) Labour had nominally come out in support of unions, as the party had been formed to speak for the working-class man. Until the formation of the British Union of Fascists, Mosley had been (at least nominally) a Labour Party MP. 

He shrugged, and indicated to a footman that he’d like more water. “It’s a delicate balance, isn’t it.”

Gina apparently couldn’t help herself from stepping in. “Like we said earlier, Lizzie. Sometimes people just don’t know what’s best for them.”

That was it. Whatever it took, Lizzie was going to help Tommy bring down Mosley, and then ruin Michael and Gina’s name in the rest of the English-speaking world. She didn’t care what it would take.

* * *

These are men whose minds the Dead have ravished.

Memory fingers in their hair of murders, 

Multitudinous murders they once witnessed.

\--Excerpt from _“Mental Cases_ ” by Wilfred Own


	10. Battle

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _Previously on The Last War:_
> 
> Lizzie, Mosley, and Lady Cynthia go to an art gallery. Lady Cynthia (Mosley’s wife) tells Lizzie that Lizzie should go ahead and give it up to Mosley, since he won’t stop until he has what he wants. At the end of the chapter Gina reappears, and she isn’t pregnant! Was she ever? Unknown.
> 
>  **CONTENT WARNING FOR CHAPTER 10:** Mosley tries to have sex with Lizzie, and it’s dubconny as hell. She’s trying to spy, he’s a dick, she gets away at the last second. Ventures somewhere towards “attempted noncon” territory. I do think I make up for that with the end bit, though?

Lizzie didn’t know what woke her. Tommy could move soundlessly when he wanted, and she hadn’t been startled awake. Maybe it was the way their bedsheets were cooling at her back, slowly losing the warmth that Tommy radiated.

Or maybe some animal sense had noticed the way he was watching her: leaned against the dresser and smoking a cigarette, his eyes in deep shadows cast by the single, distant lamp. 

“Are you leaving?” Lizzie rasped. She’d thought he was staying the weekend the way he usually did. They were supposed to ride out this morning; she’d graduated to navigating Sylph on her own while Tommy rode his latest stallion alongside. 

“Yes,” said Tommy, the tip of his cigarette blazing a dull orange as he sucked in a long drag. 

“I thought-”

“Just business,” said Tommy. “Drafts, contracts.”

“Anything I should know about?” Lizzie asked, tired and confused and starting to shiver. 

“Nothing interesting,” said Tommy. 

“Is it about Grey International?” she asked as Tommy tamped out the end of his cigarette and slid on his suit jacket. 

“Not yet,” he said, his voice still sleep-low. 

“When will you come back?”

No answer. 

Instead he asked, “You’re coming down Monday, aren’t you?”

“Yeah,” said Lizzie, rolling away from him. This hurt. She hurt, everything outside and inside seemed to be made of aches. No wonder Tommy had gotten hooked on laudanum. She was tempted to give it a go herself.

“Stop by my office,” he said, and then the door clicked shut behind him. 

Lizzie lay awake listening to his footsteps fading down the hall, even long after he was gone.

~~~

Tommy had called her, saying that he was almost done with something in his office and she should meet him in one of the little galleries on the public floor of the House of Commons. She had her coat draped over her arm and was studying another painting of another god as annoyance festered in her belly. She was tired of being made to wait, tired of looking at the boring, predatory faces of the gods of men (and only men, it seemed), and tired of longing for any show of affection from Tommy. On Christmas she’d thought- well, she’d hoped- but nothing had come to pass. They’d shared a few practical, helpful riding lessons and a collection of friendly dances (whilst surrounded by those who would strip away the rights of Tommy’s people one by one by one). Maybe that’s all they could be, friends. It was more than they’d had, and she should be thankful for it. 

“Hello, Mrs. Shelby,” someone said from behind her. She recognized that voice, that honeyed tongue. 

“Mosley,” she said, addressing him the same way Tommy would. 

“I thought we’d talked about this,” said Mosley, looping her arm through his and slowly escorting her down the gallery. “You’re to call me Oswald.”

“Hmm,” she said, not quite an acquiescence. 

“Why are you here, improving all these old things with your beauty?” Mosley asked, turning her back towards the doors. 

“Waiting for Tommy,” said Lizzie. “He phoned, told me he’d meet me down here.”

“He’s been rather busy,” said Mosley. “You know how he gets. It’s what makes him an excellent business partner; that dedication and attention to detail. Let’s go to the Strangers’; we’ll have a few drinks and see if Shelby turns up.”

Lizzie should refuse. Maybe she should push away from him, tell him to keep his hands to himself. But she couldn’t, because she was supposed to act like she and Tommy were fighting and that she was open to Mosley’s advances. 

_ Tommy was late,  _ Lizzie thought as they walked through the shadowed old hallways until they reached the doorway to the bar.  _ Tommy was late again, always came too late, and not Mosley had found her again. _ Another liveried staff member nodded them inside the bar, and Mosley called out their orders to the barman.

“You’ll have to teach Tommy to balance his work and family,” said Lizzie, accepting her gin with a grateful smile. (Gin was numbness and melancholy; for seemingly incurable sadness.) “You find time to take Lady Cynthia out and about, and attend to social matters.”

Mosley nodded, and spun his glass of whiskey on the table top without taking a sip. “It never does to get too caught up in one thing,” said Mosley. “Though I must apologize to you for monopolizing your husband.”

“Oh, he goes where he pleases,” said Lizzie, letting a bit of very real hurt bleed into her voice.

“Still,” said Mosley. “One such as yourself must be used to… keeping yourself entertained.”

“Yes,” said Lizzie with a straight face. “The children take up much of my time.”

“But what of your own pleasures?” asked Mosley, his dark eyes locked on hers. “You used to have such fun, didn’t you?”

_ All they saw was the glint,  _ Lizzie thought.  _ The glitter of the dresses and the shine of booze in glasses. They never saw the purple toes and unwanted bruises and the soreness between her thighs. They never saw the exhaustion that came with poverty.  _

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” said Lizzie, finishing her drink and signalling for another. “I’ve got everything now… Oswald.”

He leaned forward as a fresh glass was placed in front of Lizzie and the empty was whisked away. “But that’s just it,” he said. “You aren’t used to it, are you? Always watching yourself, always looking to Shelby for approval or permission. You didn’t used to need that, did you?”

Mosley was trying to paint a picture of her youth, a picture that had never existed. Loneliness wasn’t freedom, being a nightclub hostess wasn’t a never-ending party, being poor wasn’t the same as being free from societal expectations. He was wrong, and an ass, and trying to seduce her. Probably she’d have to let him,  _ because Tommy was late. _

Lizzie played along. “It feels like Tommy fucking disapproves of everything,” she said, letting a bit more of Birmingham color her words. Mosley liked the poor-girl-save-me aspect, liked that she was a street whore walking the halls of Parliament with her head up and spine straight. (She always knew what men liked.)

“There’s nobody quite as obsessed with propriety as the  _ nouveau riche _ ,” said Mosley, finally taking a dainty sip of his own drink. “Their hold on Society is so precarious that they feel anything could topple them off. The truly old titles? You should see the kinds of things they get up to,” he said. “Partnering with me gives Shelby legitimacy. He’ll relax, you’ll see.”

_ Funny,  _ Lizzie thought to herself.  _ You needed Tommy to make your new fucking party legitimate in the eyes of the people.  _

“I ought to go find him.” Lizzie finished her drink and enjoyed the way her fingers had gone tingly. She was at just the right stage of tipsy: her senses were dulled, but she was still aware. The world was the way it always was, but slightly removed from her, slightly less distressing. 

“Of course,” said Mosley, rising smoothly and winging his arm at her. “I’m sure between the two of us we can track down that errant Shelby.”

He took her up the back stairs. 

She didn’t notice at first. Lizzie hadn’t spent much time in the Parliamentary office, and couldn’t really tell one part of the gilded old building from another. What she could recognize, though, was the lack of decoration on the stairs. What she knew was the look of a hurrying servant, very intentionally not meeting their employer’s eyes. He was taking her up the back way, and that’s when Lizzie knew that something really had gone wrong. 

“Let me just swing by my office,” said Mosley, spreading his fingers wide down Lizzie’s back and steering her along a long, window-lit hallway. “I have some papers for Shelby to look over.”

“Of course,” Lizzie murmured, though inside she only wanted to scream. She knew how this story ended. 

_ Tommy was late, Tommy was late,  _ echoed inside her head. It was such a perfect reminder of where she stood with him: last. She came last, when all the other business was done. 

“Right through here,” said Mosley, steering Lizzie into a wide, dark-paneled office. There was a thick rug on the floor under a tidy waxed desk. A sideboard stood against one wall, and floor to ceiling bookcases lined the shelves. Most held books, but there were plenty of other little tokens besides, and everywhere-  _ everywhere-  _ hung pictures of Mosley. Mosley surrounded by African people, Mosley in India, Mosley fencing, Mosley on his wedding day, Mosley in his Army uniform. 

He saw her looking. “Won a fencing championship, you know,” he said. “And here’s me with the Dalai Lama. Interesting man, I think. So… passive.”

“So many places,” Lizzie said. 

“I love to travel,” said Mosley. “It always makes me happy to come home to dear old England.”

He was stroking her arm now, a slow drag of his palm up and down from her shoulder, and Lizzie turned away, crossing the room to look out the windows behind his desk. She couldn’t have told you what the view was if you’d asked. 

When Mosley closed his office door, the click of the tumbling lock tore through Lizzie like a gunshot. Lizzie crossed to the desk and trailed her fingers over it, scrambling for something to say, even as her eyes scanned the paperwork that lay across it. If she was going to do this (if this was going to be  _ done to her _ ) then she should at least see if she could take something out of it. There were letters resting on the center of the blotter, some kind of meeting minutes or session notes on the left hand side, and to his right was his diary, open to the day’s date. 

“Lovely desk,” she said, contriving to sound impressed instead of infuriated. “I wonder how many secrets and laws its seen.”

“I like to think that its best days are still before it,” said Mosley, gliding across the carpet like the weasel he was. “All the great things to come.”

The hair on the back of Lizzie’s neck prickled and shivered as he crossed to her, but she held her ground. Mosley was a predator, he was a man who had never been told ‘no’, and if she ran now it would only hurt more in the end. She knew that the way she knew her name, or which way was up. Maybe she’d been born knowing. 

Mosley rucked his hand up the back of her thigh, his fingers lingering under the hem of her dress, and Lizzie stepped away, putting the corner of the desk between them. “I’m married,” she said.

“I know,” said Mosley, leaning down to rub his fucking mustachioed mouth along her throat. Lizzie had always,  _ always  _ preferred clean shaven men. “But I’d found you first, hmm?”

“‘Fraid not,” said Lizzie, taking one more step towards the door. She had a clear line to it now, could see her reflection in the huge body-length mirror that hung on the back of the heavy oak door. She looked flushed and frightened, and subconsciously straightened her spine even as Mosley’s hands shot out and took her by the hips. 

“He’s busy,” said Mosley, trying to kiss her again, but he only got her cheek instead. “So we’ll have our own fun.”

Lizzie learned what the mirror was for as Mosley turned her towards the desk, the fleshy party of her thighs pressed against the wooden edge. He wasn’t pressing her against the long side of the desk, the bit where someone would sit. He had her pinned against the side, so that both she and Mosley were reflected in profile on the back of the door. 

“Tommy will be looking for me,” said Lizzie as Mosley rucked up the skirt of her dress again. She wasn’t sure who she was trying to convince- herself, or the man with his hand on her tit. For all she knew Tommy had sent his office assistant down to fetch her, and when she wasn’t in the gallery he’d probably have given up. 

“I’m his party leader,” said Mosley, pushing between Lizzie’s shoulders until he had her bent over the desk, her hands braced on the blotter and the carvings pressing uncomfortably against her hips. 

Maybe this was where she’d always end up: bent over a desk. Bent over a fucking desk. 

Lizzie braced herself on her elbows, bent her head to read the letters just beneath her, and thought of England. 

The doorknob rattled. Mosley stilled and then ignored it. Lizzie wriggled again, trying to scoot out from under Mosley without making him angry enough to strike her. She thought about yelling out for help, but if it was anyone but Tommy outside that door, the gossip would-

The doorknob rattled more insistently, but neither Mosley or the person outside called out. His fingers were at the crease where thigh met hip, stroking the tender skin, and Lizzie was pressing herself as hard into the desk as she could, her body yearning to get away-

The door was juddering now, soft  _ thumpthumpthumps  _ against the frame like someone was repeatedly, but accidentally bumping against it. 

Mosley’s mouth was back against her neck, and one hand had come up to hold a fistful of her hair, keeping Lizzie in place with her prickling scalp and his weight leaned against her arse. 

Finally the door flew open, knocking against the wall with a loud crack. Tommy stood in the open doorway, his eyes hot and his fists clenched. The doorknob that Tommy had somehow taken off the door rolled awkwardly across the floor, and for a long moment nobody moved. 

“Sorry old man,” said Mosley, letting Lizzie’s hair go before he stepped away from her.

For a moment Lizzie stayed splayed over the desk, tears pricking at her eyes while papers stuck to her sweaty palms. Mosley and Tommy were staring at each other, predators eyeing their challenger, and as Lizzie stood back up she clenched a fistfull of letters and shoved them into her brassier. 

Her skirt was still up around her waist so she shimmied that down too, and then slowly, with wobbling legs, she crossed the carpet towards Tommy, and then he was between her and Mosley and she was getting away-

“What can I say?” said Mosley, smoothing his hand back over his hair. “Ladies choice. She wanted it; you know how-”

Tommy moved like a rocket flare: all sudden motion and flashing, red-hot heat. He was across the carpet and braced, and his fist was colliding with Mosley’s cheekbone in a bone-crunching, wet-meat thud. Mosley staggered, reaching awkwardly for something to catch his fall, but Tommy had already returned to Lizzie. 

He took her hand and jerked her along, weaving through the corridors as Lizzie clutched the top of her dress closed and tried not to cry. 

“You came,” she mumbled as he steered her into his own office, his fingers still clamped too-tightly around hers. “You came, you came this time. You found me.”

Tommy didn’t say anything. His eyes were glittery and wild; half here and half in some other world. He’d looked like this his first few weeks back from the war, like part of his mind existed outside of himself, living in the shadows where the river Styx flowed. 

“I didn’t want it,” said Lizzie when Tommy still didn’t say anything. She was shaking now, and wasn’t that stupid? Now that she was away, now that everything would be alright.

“I know,” said Tommy, grabbing his coat off the hook and dropping that over her shoulders. “C’mon. It’s alright, Lizzie, come on.”

Finally, he turned to face her. She could feel tears on her cheeks, and for the first time in her life, she didn’t want to meet Tommy’s eyes. She wanted a bath, wanted to get so drunk that she could fall asleep on the carpet, wanted to take Tommy’s gun out from under his jacket, walk down the hall, and shoot Mosley dead. She wanted all those things, but not Tommy’s pale, all-knowing eyes on her. 

Broad thumbs swiped over her cheeks, and Lizzie closed her own eyes and tilted her face away. 

“Hey,” said Tommy, his voice low and soft. “I’m sorry. I’m so fucking sorry, Lizzie. Come on. Let’s go home, eh? Go home, get you out of here. It’ll be alright.”

She almost believed him. 

They didn’t talk on the drive home. Once they were in gear and tearing down the dusk-hued highway towards home Tommy reached over and took Lizzie’s hand, but they didn’t talk about it. Lizzie didn’t think she had anything to say. If she opened her mouth she might just start screaming and never stop, because she was  _ tired.  _

She was tired of always keeping her chin up, tired of getting on with things. She’d made the best of it, she’d kept clawing her way up in the world, and still this was where she ended up: bent over  _ another fucking desk,  _ by another man who saw her as nothing but a whore, all because Tommy had been late. 

When they got back to the house, Tommy took Lizzie’s hand again. He’d touched her more today that he had since- since he’d asked her to spend time with Mosley. He’d been more and more distant, and Lizzie had been more and more lonely, and-

“Welcome home, Mr. Shelby, Mrs. Shelby,” said Frances, appearing in the entrance hall as though she’d been waiting all day for just this occurrence. 

“Where are the kids?” Tommy asked, keeping Lizzie’s fingers tightly in his. 

“Ruby is being put down for bed, and Charles is with Harriet up in his room. Did you want to see-”

“No,” said Tommy, already towing Lizzie up the stairs. “Keep them in their rooms, Frances.”

They turned onto the landing and Tommy wrapped his arm around Lizzie’s waist and moved her along even more quickly, kicking their bedroom door shut after them. 

“What-” Lizzie asked. 

Tommy pulled her into him, cupping the back of her head and pressing her face into the hollow of his throat while his other arm anchored her against him, tight around her waist. He was warm and sturdy, more than capable of handling the slumped weight of her body and the hot tears sliding down her face. “You came,” she mumbled again. “You came this time.”

And then she shoved him hard, smacking both palms against his chest. “You were late! You were fucking late to come meet me because everything else matters more than I do, and that’s how Mosley-”

Tommy didn’t deny it, and he didn’t let her go. He held her even more tightly, murmuring low and steady: apologies, promises to do better. If only he meant it. 

“I’m sorry,” he told her. “I was fucking late; I’m the one who asked you to get close to Mosley. It’s my fault, Lizzie, not yours. I’m so fucking sorry.”

He held her until the first round of tears slowed, and she could breathe without hiccupping. It felt… so silly, so stupid to cry about this. Mosley was one more man in a long line of men who’d wanted her- he’d already had her. What had happened today was nothing that she hadn’t done before, more or less willingly, but-  _ but it hurt.  _

Tommy’s hands cupped her face one more time before he turned her towards the washroom. “Go get cleaned up,” he said. “You’ll feel better.”

He was probably right. Her head felt woolly and exhausted and overwrought, and she filled the tub and stripped out of her clothes without actively thinking about any it. When she pulled her dress off from over her head a few papers fluttered to the floor, and when she unhooked her brassiere more tumbled down after them. Her dress pooled on the floor, her pants followed, and then she was easing herself down into the nearly scalding water that smelled like lemon and lavender and femininity. It smelled  _ safe.  _ (Tommy had too, all cigarette smoke and brimstone and horse.)

Lizzie sank into the deep porcelain bath until only her nose and the crown of her head were left above the water. She should wash, should check on Ruby, but she couldn’t seem to summon the energy to make herself do anything. She’d gotten here (both into the house and to this point in her life) by running on hope and sheer grit, and now she was out of both.

~~~

Tommy gripped the edge of the kitchen counter and waited for the kettle to boil. The cook had taken one look at him and had nodded, put down her washrag, and walked out the door. 

“Mr. Shelby, if there’s something I could get-”

“No, Frances,” said Tommy through a jaw so stiffly held it ached. “Thank you.”

“Is something wrong with Mrs. Shelby? Should I send for-”

“No!” Tommy yelled, and then braced his weight on his hands and hung his head, trying to ignore the way his heart thumped  _ killhim, killhim, killhim.  _ This was all he could fucking do for Lizzie, so he was going to fucking do it. 

Mosley had had his hands on her. 

Tommy had known that it might happen in an abstract sort of way, and at the time he’d… accepted it. He hadn’t liked it, hadn’t been alright with any of it, but he’d accepted that Lizzie fucking Mosley might be the most efficient way to get information on the man. Arthur and John had killed innocent men, his family’s heads had been in the noose, and Lizzie might have to fuck Mosley. These things were the cost of business, the cost of being alive. This was his last great war before he could move on to- (to Grace) -to whatever came next. Of course the war would have casualties.

Like Lizzie had said- they’d all taken the king’s shilling. They fucking knew what they were signing up for. 

_ (Had he? Had he and Arthur and John known when they’d gone off to France with guns in their hands and smiles on their faces? Could anyone ever really know?) _

The kettle boiled. He made tea, dug out one of the bottles of laudanum Lizzie hadn’t found, and added a splash. Then he took it upstairs, kicking off his shoes as he walked through the bedroom. There wasn’t any noise coming from the bathroom, and when he stepped inside his stomach gave a strange clench. 

He’d seen Lizzie naked plenty of times. They lived together, they slept together; it wasn’t that he didn’t know how she looked. Fuck, he knew how she smelled and breathed and laughed, too. But this- there was something so stark about her, slim and pale and alone in the big porcelain tub. The tips of her hair were damp where she’d sunk down in the water all the way up to her jaw. As the water slowly rippled it distorted her long limbs, making it seem like her legs were bent at odd angles, or her elbows hooked the wrong way. 

“Here,” he said quietly, though his voice still seemed to echo loudly into the silence. 

Lizzie sat up to take the mug from him, pulling her knees up to her chest the way she did when she was cold or lonely or scared. Sometimes she’d read like that, turned sideways in one of the big parlor chairs, all balled up with a quilt like the coltish girl she’d once been.

Tommy picked up her dress and watched silently as a piece of paper fluttered out of it. He could recognize the writing by now: she’d fucking done it. Even everything- all this- she’d fucking done it. He didn’t know what the pages contained, but even if it was nothing he could use, Lizzie had transferred value to them. She was so fucking resilient. She always had been. 

He stepped over the papers and took the dress out into the hall, where he threw it over the railing and into the hall below. “Burn that!” he shouted, already retreating back to the bedroom. “Outside!”

Lizzie blinked slowly at him as he walked back into the bathroom. Her mug was almost empty, and her cheeks had gotten a little bit of color in them. “You doped me,” she said, letting her head fall back against the tub. 

“Yep,” said Tommy, dragging a low stool out from under the sink and taking a seat by the edge of the tub. He was down to his shirtsleeves, and he rolled up the cuffs just to give himself something to do with his hands. (Something that wasn’t touching her, because bloody hell, he had no fucking idea if she wanted to be touched.)

“Thank you,” said Lizzie. He could see her toes wriggling in the water, subtle little curls and uncurls. (She did that when she orgasmed, too. It was strange, the things you learned about people.)

“You found me, this time,” said Lizzie, rolling her head along the sloped surface of the tub to better look at him. “Thank you for that, too.”

“Don’t fucking thank me,” said Tommy, gripping his own knees tightly to keep from reaching in for her. “God, Lizzie. Don’t thank me.”

“I was worried you’d believe him,” she said conversationally, closing her eyes so that dark lashes fanned over her cheeks. She looked so fucking young; much younger than the nine years he had on her. 

“Hey- Lizzie, look at me, eh?” said Tommy, a little bit amazed that his voice was shaking under the strain of tamping down on his fury and loathing. “Hey- I trust you. There were times you were the only person I trusted. I know it isn’t fucking fair; that you deserve-”

He stuttered, his brain so gnarled and twisted and too drunk on its own emotions for him to fucking finish whatever it was he’d been trying to fucking say. He never had the goddamn words. 

“It’s alright,” said Lizzie, and god help him, now she was the one trying to comfort him.  _ Him,  _ the least deserving of creatures. “I’m alright. You came.”

“Yeah,” said Tommy, giving into the impulse. He stroked the back of his knuckles over Lizzie’s cheek, and her eyes flickered open again, her pupils made small and lazy by the opium. “Yeah. I’m sorry it took me this long, sweetheart.”

_ Too long to learn to value her. Too long to realize that he actively wanted her as his wife and partner and friend. Too long to fulfill the promise he’d made her a long time ago, on a sunny, summer race-day.  _

“It feels stupid to be this upset,” said Lizzie eventually, turning away from him again. “It’s not like- it’s not like he did anything I hadn’t done before.”

Tommy wanted to kill Mosley all over again. “I don’t think it works like that,” he said eventually, leaning his arm around the edge of the tub and trailing the tip of his index finger through the water. “It’s the small things that set you off. There was… in France. One of my men was accused of desertion, and I wasn’t gonna leave him up there alone. So I called, “Fire,” and afterwards I was sick. Vomited down the trench. I’d seen a thousand men die, and that was what fucking got me.”

“You go numb,” Lizzie agreed, nodding a little and causing small ripples to slosh around her. “It kind of all… builds up, until all you notice are the little things. The little differences.”

She shivered, and Tommy realized she was sitting in rapidly cooling water, watching him with her big, dark eyes. 

“Come on,” he said, grabbing a towel off the rack and holding it open for her. “Out you get.”

She stood, hugging her arms around herself, and Tommy wrapped the big bath sheet around her, noticing once again that under the attitude and stubborn chin and general air of competency, Lizzie’s bones were just as breakable as anyone else’s. She felt slim and ...fragile, like a shard of glass. Capable of cutting you, and equally capable of being shattered. 

He dried her off the way he would a skittish horse, all firm pressure and soothing voice. Lizzie smiled tentatively at him, and Tommy told himself that it was the dope. Even Lizzie wouldn’t be willing to smile at him after the day (life) she’d had; he didn’t fucking deserve it. 

She shuffled to the bed and climbed under the covers, curling on her side like a cat, her damp hair waving around her face. 

“Need anything?” Tommy asked, clicking off her bedside lamp and edging one hip up to sit on the edge of the mattress. 

“No,” said Lizzie, sighing deeply. “I’ll be alright.” 

He knew she would be. It was magic intrinsic to her, he thought, the way Polly had the Sight. Whatever happened, Lizzie would bounce back. 

“But-?”

“Yeah?” he asked, smoothing his hand down her side. 

Her lips tipped up at that. “Will you still be here in the morning?”

_ Fuck.  _ Fuck.  _ Didn’t she know he’d burn London to the ground for her right now? He’d walk into the tunnels for her, and all she wanted was for him to stay.  _

Tommy’s voice was thick when he finally replied. “Yeah,” he said gruffly. “Yeah, I’ll be here.”

~~~

He could feel her beginning to wake. 

It started with her legs, slowly gliding over their expensive sheets in slow passes, a restless mammalian urge to stretch and move overtaking Lizzie before full consciousness could catch up. She tried to roll over, but Tommy was pressed against her, cupping her breast and swiping his thumb back and forth, back and forth over her nipple. 

When Lizzie’s lips parted Tommy had to stop himself from leaning in to kiss her, not wanting her to startle awake with her face inches from his. Finally her dark lashes flickered and she was blinking up at him, sleep-soft and arousal flushed. 

“Hello,” she said, her voice raspy and colored with a smile. 

Tommy slid the pads of his fingers up and down her cunny, enjoying her hip wriggle and hitching breath. “Good morning,” he told her, dropping a kiss to her forehead. 

“Mmm- what are you doing?” she asked. 

“If you have to ask me, I’m not doing it right,” said Tommy, sliding two fingers into her damp heat and pressing the heel of his hand into her clit. 

“It’s- oh,” said Lizze on a sigh. “I missed this, Tommy.”

So had he, and he’d been the one denying both of them this kind of closeness. After everything with Mosley, it had been hard to look at Lizzie without guilt biting at him, twisting his gut and turning him away from his own wife. Maybe, in the end, he really was a coward. 

“I’m right here,” he said, and rolled over her, keeping one hand between them and bracing himself on the other. Tommy took one of her nipples into his mouth and sucked, enjoying her quickening breaths and rocking hips. Her palm slid up over the back of his head and tugged at gone-too-long hair that kept falling into his eyes. 

He’d liked having her like this; he always had, but things had changed after the talk of divorce. Maybe he’d stopped pretending to be indifferent to her, maybe she’d stopped playing at being a proper manor-house-mistress. (Both. It was always both.) Now, though, when he had her in bed it was- fuck, it was like fighting but with none of the fear, like strategy but with none of the risk, like he was alive and fucking  _ whole.  _ All he had to concentrate on was her, all he could think of was his next touch or thrust; all his attention was on making her moan again, or in finding a way to make her jolt and wriggle under his hands and mouth. 

(It had been easy to give her everything she wanted in bed, when she was giving him everything he’d never hoped to want, too.)

Lizzie arched against him and Tommy shifted with her, their bodies moving together in a dance that was as familiar as the sight of themselves in the mirror. She was going slick around his fingers, and she shuddered when he dragged his teeth over one spit-damn nipple. “Always like a bit of pain, eh?” he mumbled, shifting to her other breast. 

“S’why I liked you,” she said, breathy and low, her fingernails scraping lightly over the skin of his back. “You never make it easy, Tom.”

_ Yeah. He never fucking did, did he? _

“I’ll be better,” he told her, sucking a love-bruise into the upper curve of her breast. (She had fucking magnificent tits, and they looked even better with the fading marks he’d put there.) “Make it up to you.”

Her fist closed in his hair and yanked him up towards her face, and he followed Lizzie’s hands since he didn’t relish the idea of starting his day with a scalping. 

“Don’t fucking tell me that,” she panted, her eyes hard and jaw stubbornly set. “Don’t fucking tell me that, Tom, and not mean it. I can take… I can take almost anything, but not that. Not fucking  _ hope.” _

She broke his fucking heart; that traitorous organ that should have died a long time ago, that he thought he’d left in France. How the fuck did she say that stuff out loud? How the fuck did she give her hope to him?

“I will,” he told her, ducking his head to kiss her temple. “I fucking will, Lizzie.”

She shuddered, and he wondered how she could manage to be so fierce when he was pinning her to the bed and had two fingers wedged deep in her cunt. “It’ll be alright,” he told her, slowly sliding back down her body, pressing kisses and bites to her skin in equal measure. 

He’d fucking make it alright. 

When Tommy pulled one of her thighs over his shoulder she dug her other heel into the bed, starting to question, “Tom-?” before he tilted his head and pressed his tongue to her sex. She tasted like- like fucking  _ life,  _ equal parts salty and bitter, but warm, too. Warm and fundamental and soft, like soil in the spring sun, or the saltwater spray of the English Channel. 

He’d never done this for her before. 

Distantly he heard her mumble, “Oh god,” and then her fingers were back in his hair and he couldn’t tell if she was trying to push him away or drag him closer. Maybe she couldn’t tell, either. 

It had been a conscious decision at first, to use her mouth and not give her his own. Some kind of subtle message, that cunny-licking was for the wife he’d chosen for himself, the one he’d actually loved. She’d never asked about it, and it had become a habit between them, even as his resentment for her waned. 

She was impossibly lush and silky, and her swears and mumbles and moans were strung all together like pearls on a necklace: precious and soft and natural, formed by friction and time. 

Tommy rearranged himself, and hid his smile from her when she grumbled at his stopping. He was so fucking hard, absolutely aching to get inside her, but even his own arousal seemed distant right now: Lizzie was everything he could taste and smell and feel; her thighs bracketed him like bookends, cover to cover, beginning to end. 

(Maybe one day he’d find comfort in that, that she’d been with him since his rise, and she’d stand by him for his inevitable fall.)

Tommy slid two fingers back inside her, ignoring the awkward angle of his wrist, and set himself back to work at her clit, sucking and laving and flicking with his tongue, reveling in the baseness of the act, in the way her heels were digging into his back the way a jockey urged on their racehorse. (Maybe this time he’d have bruises, too.)

Soon enough her legs began to tremble, and she’d gone quiet the way she always did just before she came. Tom didn’t let up, didn’t change the angle of his fingers inside her or the pressure of his mouth against her cunt. She was close, so close, and then he could-

She came around him silently and hard, her legs tensing against his ears and her sex pressed against his aching jaw. Tommy wrenched free and slid up her and into her before her orgasm finished (it had always fascinated Tommy how long a woman’s pleasure could last). Her sex rippled around his cock, and he went still for a moment, his body half-shocked by the sudden  _ moltenwetperfectmine  _ sensation of her cunny around his cock after nothing but the bedspread and the cold air of the room. 

“Tom,” said Lizzie, wrapping her fingers around his biceps and anchoring herself against him as he began to move. “Tom.”

_ Fuck him,  _ but he loved it when she got like this, too pleasure-struck and sex-stupid to say anything but  _ yes  _ and  _ no  _ and  _ please  _ and  _ Tom,  _ murmuring his name like a fucking prayer. Her eyes were blown wide, her cheeks were flushed and pink, and her hair was tangled around her like a dark halo. 

He rubbed his face against the pillow by her head, trying to wipe some of her tacky slickness off his chin before catching her mouth with his. It was all teeth and teenage clumsiness and Tommy couldn’t fucking breathe, but maybe he didn’t need to. Maybe he could die like this, balls deep in his wife, suffocated in her while laying in his own fucking bed. There were plenty of worse ways to go.

Lizzie was rocking her hips up to meet his thrusts, her head tossed back on the pillow with her eyes tightly shut and her lips parted as she panted beneath him. 

“Look at me,” said Tommy, catching Lizzie’s chin and turning her face towards him. “Pretty girl, look at me-”

She always looked a little desperate like this, like her body had run off without her and she couldn’t figure out why she needed him so much. 

“Fuck, Tom-” Lizzie mumbled, her breath puffing hot and humid over his face. 

“Yeah,” he said, sliding his hand down to her hip, angling her up towards him, and  _ fuck,  _ it felt like he was so deep inside her he’d have to crawl his way back out. 

“Touch yourself,” he told her, watching at her fingers slid over her sweat-dampened skin to her cunt. When she dipped past her clit to rub the pads of her fingers over the place where they were joined he nearly fucking came right then and there. He loved that, loved the curiosity of her fingers as she rubbed the base of his cock, as she explored the place where they fit so perfectly together.  _ Fuck fuck fuck.  _

The orgasm he’d been holding off was growing now, building in the base of his spine and slick-wet balls. “Lizzie,” he mumbled as he pressed his face into the side of her neck, breathing in the smell of shampoo and lavender and sweat. _ FamiliarhomeLizzie.  _ “Come on, Lizzie, come on, right around my cock, there’s a girl-”

As she bucked up against him Tommy finally came too, sliding into her as deeply as he could and twitching as he gave everything to her: come, hope, gratefulness, lo-

(Don’t fucking go there, Tommy lad.)

Unfortunately, Lizzie and the universe were conspiring against him. 

“Do you want to know when I realized I loved you?”

She’d never said it out loud before. Other people had told him that she loved him, and he’d seen it on her face often enough, but she’d never  _ said  _ it. And here they were, with his cock softening inside her, and she was telling him casually, like it was any other Friday morning. 

Tommy rolled off her and pulled her into him, arranging things so that he could feel her heart and her breath but wouldn’t have to look her in the face. 

(Fucking coward, he was.)

“It was a few months after you came back,” said Lizzie. “After you’d started fucking me. I’d just had the abortion, you remember?”

_ He’d never fucking forget. The blood, her pale, pale skin-  _ “Yeah,” he said, soothing her (himself?) by stroking over her skin with his fingertips. 

“You told me that it was going to be okay. That I would be okay. And I’d heard it before- I’d fucking told myself before- it it always sounded like a lie. Things were never alright for girls like me, we never ended up okay in the end, but you said it… and for a moment, I believed you.”

Tommy didn’t know what the fuck to say to that. It had been a lie, and both of them knew it, but was it still a lie if you could believe in it? Wasn’t that all religion was, in the end? A lie that you believed so you could get up in the morning?

“I think we will be alright,” she said quietly, rolling in his arms and peering up at him. “Don’t you?”

“Yeah,” said Tommy around a lump in his throat. “We’re Shelbys. We’ll be fucking fine.”

* * *

We that have seen the strongest

Cry like a beaten child, 

The sanest eyes unholy, 

The cleanest hands defiled, 

We that have known the heart blood

Less than the lees of wine, 

We that have seen men broken, 

We know that man is divine.

\--Excerpt from “ _ Back to Rest” _ by W. N. Hodgson

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I love all of you. You're all beautiful and talented and kind, and I wish the world for you. We're gonna get through this.


	11. Ceasefire

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _Previously on The Last War:_
> 
> Mosley finds Lizzie waiting for Tommy. He takes her to a bad, and then up to his office, where he tries to have sex with her. Tommy intervenes just in time. Lizzie steals a fistful of letters from Mosley’s desk. Tommy comforts her and drives Lizzie home, where they have an honest conversation. (Finally, I know.)
> 
> The next morning Tommy wakes Lizzie up with cunnilingus, which is something he’d never done for her before. (We all been knew that Tommy is a doer and not a sayer, and that his apologies are conveyed through actions. We also been knew he’s a gangster that fucks ¯\\_(ツ)_/¯ )

“I can wait in your office. It would be alright, you can find me-”

Tommy stopped towing Lizzie down the halls of Parliament. Instead he turned, took her shoulders, and looked her straight in the eyes. “You’re the one who got the fucking letters. You’re the one who did it, not me. You’ll have to give your statement anyway, so it might as well be now, eh?”

Lizzie did  _ not  _ agree. She hadn’t been this nervous since her wedding, when she’d been pregnant and moody and absolutely convinced that the whole proposal had been a trick that Tommy was playing on her. 

She had no purpose in being here in Parliament, and she especially didn’t have any reason to be talking with Winston Churchill. 

“He’s not a cruel man,” Tommy was saying, those shocking blue eyes steady on hers. “And if he says something to you, I’ll destroy him.”

“Like you destroyed Suckerby?”

Tommy raised an eyebrow at her. 

“It was in the papers,” said Lizzie. “After the competency hearing, when he spoke against you… it just seemed like something you’d do.”

The lines around Tommy’s mouth softened like he was thinking about smiling. “Well,” he said eventually. “Churchill isn’t nearly as bad as Suckerby.”

“Satan isn’t as bad as Suckerby, if the papers are true,” said Lizzie as Tommy started walking her down the marble and gilt hallway again. 

“There’s a girl,” said Tommy, pulling open a set of heavy, carved doors and gesturing Lizzie inside. 

For a strange, half-giddy moment Lizzie wondered if she was supposed to curtsy. 

“Ah,” said Churchill, setting his massive cigar down in a crystal ashtray and pushing up to his feet. “The Shelbys. Do come in, come in.”

Tommy shut the doors behind him and took Lizzie’s coat while she surreptitiously peeked around the room. It was similar enough to Tommy’s office, all dark wood paneling and pastoral paintings. The real difference was the wall of grainy photographs: all scenes of the war. Lizzie wondered what kind of man  _ wanted  _ to remember his time in France. 

Tommy gestured to one of the deep, rounded leather chairs that had been arranged in front of Churchill’s desk, and then he took the other. 

“I understand you have some letters for me,” said Churchill, his little eyes focused on Tommy. How many men were fooled by his appearance? The image of a self-indulgent, aging old soldier? It wasn’t working on Lizzie. She knew people too well to think that power could only be physical.

“We do,” said Tommy, nodding. “The proof I think you’ve been looking for.”

“Well?”

Tommy took a folder out of the inside of his coat, but didn’t pass it over the desk to Churchill. “I want a few assurances, first.”

Churchill leaned back in his seat and picked up his cigar. “What is it this time, man? I can’t give you a knighthood, I’m afraid.”

Lizzie could picture it easily enough- Tommy on his big black stallion, tilting at the windmills of England. Maybe there weren’t anymore dragons, but Tommy never had to look hard for a fight. 

“I want Lizzie kept out of whatever version of events you tell the Home Office. Blame me, if you have to, or Mosley’s assistant.”

“Gallant still, aren’t you?” mused Churchill. “Even though you threw your medals in the canal.”

_ How the fuck did he know that? _

“Nothing else?” Churchill continued. “No new schemes, no contracts, no bribes…?”

“Well,” said Tommy, and Churchill smiled, his eyes glinting. “There’s a favor you could do me at the tax office, eh? But I’ll save that for another time.”

Churchill’s eyes flicked to Lizzie. “Done. The letters…?”

Tommy passed over the folder, and Churchill spread it over his cluttered desk. Tommy and Churchill both had desks that were all over papers and books and newspaper articles. Mosely’s had been all neat stacks and polished wood, and Lizzie lost the trail of her thoughts before she found whatever conclusion she’d been chasing. 

“This is treason,” said Churchill, looking slowly up at Tommy. 

He nodded. “You’ll have to make the case, but it’s all there. Plans to gain power and publicly align Britain with the German Reich. They’ll argue that it isn’t treason because Germany is not an active enemy of the state…”

“But we just finished one apocryphal war with them, and the seeds for a second have already been planted,” Churchill finished. “You’re right. I can use this, and I think we can win, but… hmm.”

The office went quiet for a moment. Tommy was watching Churchill, Churchill was staring unseeingly at the file, and Lizzie was feeling unnecessary. 

“How did these come into your possession?” Churchill asked eventually. “Whatever explanation is given to the Home Office, it needs to complement whatever tale Mosley will tell.”

“I didn’t get them,” said Tommy. He tilted his head towards Lizzie and added, “She did.”

“Mrs. Shelby,” said Churchill, looking at her with one heavy eyebrow raised. 

Lizzie settled for a nod. “Mosley was escorting me to find Tommy-”

_ She didn’t think of his hands on her. She wouldn’t think of how stupid she must sound to this great man.  _

“Mosley was taking me up to find Tommy, and he said that he needed to stop by his office to find paperwork to take to Tom, too. While we were in his office I saw that he’d left those on his desk, so I took them when he wasn’t looking.”

It was the truth, pure and unadorned. Just not the  _ whole  _ truth. 

“You suspected that Mosley was using his connections to Germany to undermine the course of the British Government?”

“Yes,” said Lizzie. She understood where this was going, now. They’d said ‘treason’, and that meant conspiracy, so Lizzie added, “One of the letters talks about him being in charge, and I thought ‘in charge’ might be a threat to the Prime Minister. Or the  _ king.” _

She was laying it on thick, but if there’s anything a whore knows how to do, it’s tell a story. Since this particular story didn’t have anything to do with her, she felt safe adding, “I was only thinking of England,” in a simper-sweet voice, and topped the whole act off with a wink. 

Churchill looked absolutely delighted, and Tommy was staring at his floor and biting his lip like he was trying not to smile. 

“Shelby,” said Churchill, not taking his eyes off Tommy, “Your family is, as ever, a delight.”

“Thank you,” said Lizzie, enjoying her chance to be cheeky. 

~~~

“This isn’t our turn,” said Lizzie as they drove back home from London. Tommy was supposed to have merged off to the east towards North Warwickshire, but instead he was heading towards Birmingham. 

“I know,” said Tommy. “There’s something I want to show you.”

“Is it something nice?” Lizzie asked. “Or is this the Black Hand again?”

“Don’t fucking joke,” said Tommy, glancing over at her. “It’s something nice, alright? Jesus. Black fucking hand.”

Lizzie laughed, and Tommy smirked at her, and on they drove, skirting around east Birmingham and then passing long stone walls and rolling fields and growing shadows cast by a wintry afternoon sun. 

“Are we visiting someone?” Lizzie asked when they turned in the long white-stone drive of a country manor house. 

“No,” said Tommy, bringing the car to a stop. “The house is empty.”

He got out of the Bentley and Lizzie followed, looking up at the facade of the big stone house. “Another investment property?” Lizzie asked. 

“No, I thought-” Tommy paused to light a cigarette, and Lizzie stole it from him, wondering why he was bothering to stall. “I’ve been thinking about moving,” said Tommy. “It’s closer to Birmingham, closer to London. It would be easier to come home during the week-”

_ It was for them.  _ Lizzie had lived with Tommy long enough to know him, to see through at least some of his tics and plans, and he wasn’t doing this for Shelby Company Limited or to hide money from the tax men or even to curry favor from her. 

He was extending an olive branch the only way he knew how: not with words, but with actions. Spending more time with the family meant less time at work or on the road, and so he’d split the difference and move his family closer to where he needed to be.

Speechless, Lizzie nodded and took Tommy’s hand. “Let’s go look,” she said. 

The front of the house was symmetrical, all gentle grey stone covered here and there with trailing wisteria vines that were trying (and mostly failing) to remain green. The entry was covered and arched, almost like they were entering a monastery. Bowed windows sparkled on each wing of the house, and Lizzie counted three stories worth of windows nestled under a happy red roof. 

The inside was just as nice. Symmetrical in the way most Georgian homes were, with polished wood floors and intricate plaster details along the ceiling. “Library through there,” said Tommy, nodding to Lizzie. “Other side is the parlor. Dining room, study, kitchen through there.” He pointed down the hallway towards the back of the house. 

“It’s lovely,” said Lizzie, trailing her fingertips along the chair rail. It was brighter than Arrow House: the windows were bigger, and the plaster walls were painted instead of being all dark wood paneling. She liked it already. 

They went up the stairs, and Tommy caught Lizzie’s hand again, leading her to the front of the house. Here was another room with a pretty bow window and built-in cushioned seat. The fireplace was swept clean, and sunshine poured over the honey-colored floor. “This would be your room,” he said. “Right at the top of the stairs. Right over the library.”

“What-”

“Whatever it is you do in the freezing little closet now,” said Tommy, walking Lizzie over to the window and wrapping his arms around her waist. “Write letters, or read, or ring for pot after pot of tea, I don’t give a fuck.”

The message was clear. He didn’t intend for this to be  _ his  _ house. It was hers, too. 

“You know,” said Lizzie quietly, turning in Tommy’s arms so they were face-to-face. “You can’t buy your way out of trouble every time you fuck up. Even if you can afford it.”

“I don’t have to buy my way out of trouble,” said Tommy, bending to kiss her. He nipped her lip, just hard enough to make Lizzie gasp, and then he pulled away again. “I just have to get you into bed. Much, much cheaper.”

Lizzie smacked at him playfully, and then they went exploring again. Tommy pointed out the rooms he thought would work for the children, described the state of the stables (“fucking awful, needed more work than the house”) and told her that there was more land with this house than Arrow House; that the Lees could come and go as they pleased.

They walked back out to the car as the shadows went long and the air went gold for those few timeless, bright minutes before night came on in earnest. 

“Well?” Tommy asked, and Lizzie realized with a little bit of wonder that he was  _ nervous.  _

“It’s wonderful,” she said, leaning against him. “It’s-”

“Smaller,” said Tommy, as Lizzie said, “Lived in.”

“It feels happy,” she added after a while. “It doesn’t loom.”

Tommy stroked his hand down over her hair, but didn’t comment on the clear comparison between this manor and Arrow House. 

“It’ll be a shitshow, trying to get the kids and horses and servants down here.”

Lizzie shrugged. “Get some trucks, hire some men.”

They leaned against the car and looked up at the house again, each content to think their own thoughts. 

Eventually, Lizzie had to ask. “Tom- are you sure? You don’t have to do this. I know Arrow House- and Grace… I don’t mind staying there. It’s a good house.”

(The house that still contained the untouched bedroom that Tommy had shared with Grace; the house that stood as a shrine to her.) 

“It doesn’t bother me,” Lizzie added lamely. 

Tommy wrapped an arm around Lizzie’s waist, and briefly tilted his head so that it rested against hers. “Yeah,” he said eventually. “When I got back from the Boswell camp, I was- I’d been seeing Grace for a while. Opium dreams, or whatever the fuck they were. I kept expecting to see her around again, somehow. Like it was really her, and not the fucking dope, eh? Told myself that if I finished this thing with Mosley I’d be free. At peace, maybe. So the next time someone shot me, I could just… let go.”

“Next time,” said Lizzie, wondering how one man could be so smart and so fucking thick at the same time. “Of course you think in terms of ‘next time’.”

“What, you really think I’ll make it more than three or four years without a bullet or two? What kind of fucking life would that be.”

Lizzie thought he was joking, but she wasn’t sure. “A normal one.”

“When the fuck have we ever been normal?” Tommy mused, absently lighting another cigarette.

“So why now?” Lizzie asked, stealing his cigarette again. 

“I bought you a cigarette case,” he said mildly, but patiently lit another for himself. 

Lizzie exhaled a stream of smoke that hung in the air like spun gold, glittering in the deep evening sun, and then dissipated on the breeze. 

Tommy shrugged. “Part of it was Finn, I think. I fucking raised that kid as much as Polly did, and he still ended up- I don’t fucking know. Spoiled. Taking everything for fucking granted, high on the family name.”

“Charles is a good boy,” said Lizzie, catching the direction of Tommy’s thoughts. 

“He is,” Tommy agreed, exhaling smoke on a sigh. “But the fucking name... there are things he’s going to need to know. Even if he never touches the fucking business- and I hope he stays fucking clean- there are people who might come gunning for him. He should hear it from me.”

“He should,” Lizzie agreed. 

Tommy dropped the butt of his cigarette and ground it into the pretty white gravel of the drive. “I could figure a way to be home with Charles more anywhere,” said Tommy. “It’s- the house… I want it for  _ you,  _ Lizzie. We’ve been married, what? Going on four years? Only fucking things you’ve asked for have been for the kids, or for me to be fucking honest with you.”

Neither of them mentioned that she hadn’t been mad enough to ask him for loyalty. She’d always known where she stood, she’d always understood what she was to him… right up until then. Because things had changed between them again, and she wasn’t sure what was happening anymore.

Lizzie had to swallow a barb about low expectations and disappointment. This, from Tommy, was the best apology she was going to get. Maybe he’d stay thoughtful and kind towards her. Maybe he wouldn’t. 

“I don’t know what it would take to make you happy,” said Tommy eventually, turning his face away like he was pretending to study the neat winter gardens. “And I’m not sorry for- Grace, and Arrow House. It was hers. This house can be yours- ours. Alright? I don’t know if it will make you happy, and I don’t know if  _ I _ can fucking make you happy, but it felt right to try. Fucking- start fresh.”

Lizze didn’t know if he could make her happy either, because everything he did for her (to her) was a cocktail of pain and pleasure in one. Joy and heartbreak, laughter and tears. But god help her, she wanted to try. 

Lizzie didn’t know how to tell him any of that, so she turned to him, pressing Tommy between her body and the car, and kissed him with tongue and teeth and all the things she wished she could say. He tasted like cigarettes and exhaustion and- and home.  _ Home. _

_ (“You can tell me. What was it you wanted?” Tommy had asked, back in the Arrow House kitchen. _

_ “This,” she said quietly. “A big, clean house. A bed of my own, a real one. All the coal I wanted to burn.  _

_ You _ , Lizzie thought in the present.  _ I always wanted you _ .)

“Thank you,” she told him, her lips brushing over his. “Thank you.”

Tommy ran his hands down her sides and around to cup her arse. “Yeah?” he asked, one corner of his mouth tipping up. “I can think of a couple ways you can thank me at home.”

Lizzie cupped him through his trousers. “Then take me home, soldier.”

* * *

I don’t want just words. If that’s all you have for me, you’d better go. --F. Scott Fitzgerald

* * *

_ Conviction introduces emotion, which is the enemy of oratory.  _ If that was true, he was well and truly fucked.

Tommy took one last look down at his notes and then placed them on the bench, ignoring the feeling of being watched by hundreds of eyes. 

“By now you’ll have seen the papers,” said Tommy, looking around the benches of his fellow MPs. “Last night, just after dark, Oswald Mosley was arrested for treason against the crown of England.”

Low murmurs spread through the benches and the galleries above, and for a moment Tommy imagined that he could feel Lizzie’s eyes on him. He’d asked her to drive down for this, to see whatever it was that happened next for herself. 

“I turned the evidence over to the Home Office myself,” Tommy continued. “Though he has yet to stand trial, I believe that Mosley was conspiring with a foreign government to undermine the crown of England. To undermine everything so many of us fought for.

“Some of you will wonder how I could betray my cosponsor. My party leader. I’d like to remind you, all of you, that we took no oath to our political parties. The only thing we swore, every last one of us, was to uphold the throne of England. 

“That’s what we’re supposed to be doing in this room as we debate and stamp and sermonize. As we trade votes, and bargain. We’re supposed to be upholding the ideals of the British Empire. We should be arguing about how to improve, how to better ourselves, how to represent the people who elected us into these seats. It shouldn’t be about the party. It’s about the people, out there, who are working more hours for less pay. The soldier who came home to see  _ Veterans need not apply  _ in shop windows. Kids without beds to sleep in.

“That’s what drew me to the new party. Working together in this place to make the world better out there. Mosley thought he saw a way to do that. I wanted to believe him. That is why I hope you’ll believe me when I say that I renounce the British Union of Fascists. I abdicate the party, and hope it will slide into dissolution. We cannot salvage something that was so used against everything we hold dear in England. We cannot move forward with the stain of treason on it. I apologize for my association with it, and I hope to move forward with all of you, here: in support of the King, in support of Parliament, and above all, in support of the British people.”

He sat back down, sliding his glasses down off his nose and folding them into his breast pocket. It would work, or it wouldn’t. He’d called a reporter to come in to the galleries today, and he’d said his piece. 

For a moment, nobody spoke. Silence reigned along the polished panels and old benches, until someone, eventually, broke the quiet. 

“Well said.”

Murmurs spread, then, and nods, and then canes were thumping the floor and calls of  _ hear, hear,  _ were echoing through the chamber. 

It was an unexpected relief. It was a fucking relief, and wouldn’t Ada laugh herself silly if she could see it.  _ Tommy Shelby,  _ she’d say, her voice fond and mocking. “ _ Tommy Shelby with a cause. Now I really have seen everything.” _

Once he’d promised a dying girl that he’d change the world. It mattered, but in a distant sort of way. What was more important, now, was the world he’d be leaving to his kids. He wanted better for Charles, for gypsy-eyed Ruby. (In some dark corner of his soul, part of Tommy wanted to give them a reason to be proud of their dad.)

The Speaker took the floor and officially suspended Mosley from Parliament, pending trial. The session moved on, as everything did. Just like that, and Tommy’s war was over.

He’d thought through all the angles of this. Tommy had originally wanted to out himself as a spy, to say that he’d only associated with the scum that were Mosley and the Fascists because he’d been asked. He was a veteran, he was a working man, he was the perfect person to tap. It would be a fucking story, a big one, the kind of story that people could cheer for. It would have rendered him fucking useless for anything else, though. Would have lost him his leverage with Churchill, because an exposed spy was of no use. An exposed spy was  _ nothing.  _

But a man asking for a second chance… well, everyone loved the underdog. Tommy had been a bookie. He could prove that the British liked long odds. 

* * *

The world is a fine place and worth the fighting for and I hate very much to leave it. --Ernest Hemingway, _For Whom The Bell Tolls_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi loves. I’m still here. You’re still here. Look how wonderfully we’re all doing, supporting each other from all across the world. Celebrate everything you’ve done today: made tea, washed your face, sent an email. 
> 
> It’s the little things that matter most, now. Our humanity is in the little gestures. I love you all <3


	12. Peace

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _Previously on The Last War:_
> 
> Tommy takes Lizzie and the evidence to Churchill, who enjoys Lizzie almost as much as we do. Mosley is arrested for treason! Then Tommy takes Lizzie by a smaller, cozier house and says he wants to start over fresh with her there. It's sickeningly earnest.

It is something to have wept as we have wept,

It is something to have done as we have done.

\--Excerpt from “ _The Great Minimum_ ”, GK Chesterton 

* * *

“What the fuck do you want?” Polly asked, peering around her slightly opened front door. 

“To talk,” said Tommy. 

Lizzie didn’t know how much luck he’d have with her. She kept hanging up on his calls, wouldn’t answer letters from Shelby Company Limited, and kept the doors locked when Lizzie had tried dropping by. 

“C’mon, Pol, you gonna leave us out on the stoop?”

“I should,” said Polly, not budging an inch. “I’m not coming back to Shelby Company Limited. I told you to put out an advert for a treasurer-” 

“Fine,” said Tommy easily, confident in his best Parliament suit. Lizzie was still a bit shocked by what she’d heard, perched up in the gallery. Tommy hadn’t bragged about how he’d captured an enemy of the crown, about his gallantry medals or his history of being used as a spy by fucking Churchill. No, he’d been humble. Her gypsy robber boy, proverbial hat in hand. And the House had _believed it._ Hadn’t seen that a tiger stilled was a tiger who was waiting to pounce. 

And yet- even knowing all she knew- Lizzie had believed him too. 

“We’ll come in and celebrate your retirement, eh?”

“How do you know I’m not working?” Polly asked, her hair curling wildly down around her shoulders. 

“Because I know everything,” said Tommy, jamming a boot against the doorjam before Polly could slam it closed in his face. 

“Don’t you fucking realize what you’ve done? You and your fucking pride? I can’t choose you, and I can’t choose my son, and so I have nothing, Tom. Fucking nothing. And it’s your-”

“I didn’t make Michael disobey my order to sell,” said Tommy mildly, apparently perfectly content to have this argument on Polly’s front stoop in front of god and everybody. Lizzie could already see curtains twitching around the street. 

“I’m not the one who told him to suggest my fucking- stepping down in front of the whole family.”

“You humiliated him,” said Polly, her eyes wild and lips thin with rage. “Over and over, belittling him, taunting-”

Tires squealed on the street, and Michael’s black imported Ford ground to a stop, front tires over the curb and into Polly’s yard. He looked wild- shirt open at the throat, no waistcoat, hair a mess and coat askew. Lizzie’s attention didn’t bother with the rest of it, choosing to focus instead on the pistol in Michael’s hand. 

“You, you fucking-”

Polly had disappeared into the house, leaving the door open wide, but Tommy didn’t go inside. Instead he turned to Michael, pushing his coat back a little to give easier access to the holster he always wore tucked under his arm. 

“You took my fucking _wife,”_ Michael roared. “Coming for fucking women and kids now, Tom? You fucking took Gina-”

The barrel of Michael’s gun swung towards Lizzie, and Tommy took a half step in front of her. Polly reappeared, her own gun in hand, and together the three of them watched as Michael came apart, the gun shaking in his hand. 

“That wasn’t me,” said Tommy easily, like they were discussing this over tea. “That was the Home Office.”

“You- they took her on charges of acting as a foreign agent against the crown. She could fucking hang, Tommy.”

Tommy didn’t say anything. 

“And today, while I’m on the phone trying to find my wife, the accountant for Grey International calls me. You know what he said? That all our assets had been frozen. Someone in the tax office audited our application, you see, and they suspect that we used money from a foreign state to fund Gina’s seditious movement.”

“I warned you about those offshore funds,” said Tommy mildly. “Bank of England’s the way to go.”

Michael was going redder and redder in the face. “I can’t hire a _fucking lawyer,”_ he screamed. “And I know it was you! Tommy Shelby, MP; Tommy Shelby who thinks that if he can, he fucking should. You’ve always been threatened by me-”

“I never needed you,” said Tommy, and Lizzie wanted to kick him. He shouldn’t be pouring petrol on the fire; the last thing Michael needed was insults. 

Sure enough, Michael fired. The shot went wide, clipping through the brick front of the house and sending shards spraying over Tommy and Polly and Lizzie. Tommy still hadn’t reached for his gun, and Polly was frozen in place, her knuckles white around the butt of her weapon. 

“C’mon, Pol,” Tommy murmured, not taking his eyes off Michael. “You told me that you saw either me or Michael killing each other over this, and I’m fucking trying-”

 _So he was going to make her choose?_ Going to make her pick between her sons now, with bullets flying and the neighbors watching? 

Lizzie reached down, yanked the gun out of Polly’s hand, and held it in both hands, extending it over Tommy’s shoulder. 

“You get my wife back. You get my company back. Go make the calls, and I won’t kill you.”

“Michael-” said Polly, her voice cracking. 

“No, mum! You always take his side, you’ve always picked him, and I’m your son! It should have been me!”

“I never-” Polly started, and then Michael started to raise his gun again. 

Lizzie’s finger tightened on the trigger-

But everyone, including Michael, turned at the sound of a motor coming down the street and quickly growing louder. A police car jumped the curb and punted Michael six feet to the side, knocking the gun from his hand and sending him sprawling over the half-dead grass. Another police car pulled to the curb and then… everything was chaos again. 

Shakily Lizzie lowered Polly’s gun, and Tommy gently prised it from her fingers. 

“Is he dead?” she whispered.

“No,” he said, glancing at Michael over his shoulder. “Probably wishes he was.”

“I was-” 

“I know,” said Tommy, pulling her into him. 

“Why didn’t you just shoot him?” Lizzie asked, pressing her face into his neck. 

Tommy shrugged against her. “MPs can’t go around shooting people on the lawn,” he told her. 

Lizzie snorted, giggling a little at the absurdity of their lives. “Oh, never say it,” she teased. “Tommy Shelby, risen too high to do his own killing.”

“Hush,” he told her, yanking lightly on her hair. “Someone’ll hear you.”

“So?” Lizzie asked, reaching into Tommy’s coat pocket for his cigarettes and lighter. “We could buy ‘em off.”

Tommy huffed a silent laugh. “So now she chooses to spend my money.”

“It’s a sound investment,” said Lizzie, blowing out a stream of smoke. “Never know when you’ll need a copper.”

Tommy dropped a kiss onto her temple as a police officer walked over to them. They were still standing on Polly’s stoop, and it couldn’t have been more than ten minutes since they’d arrived. It felt surreal, and Lizzie almost- but not quite- felt bad for Michael and Gina. They’d known the risks. They were adults who’d tried to fly too high, too quickly. Lizzie could have told them from experience: falls always hurt. 

“Mr. Shelby, Mrs. Shelby,” said the officer, flipping open a notebook. “We had reports from the neighbors that there was a man here, holding a gun on a member of Parliament. Apparently your- nephew?”

“Cousin,” said Tommy smoothly. 

“Care to tell me what provoked him?”

Tommy, damn his hide, only grinned. 

~~~

Mosley and Cimmy would have been horrified by this party. Lizzie loved it. 

The doors to Griffith’s Park had been thrown open to the cold night air. Lamps were lit, lanterns had been strung, and Tommy had bought more booze than any one group could drink- or so Lizzie had thought. A full jazz band was playing in the dining room, which had been cleared of the long table and turned into a space for dancing. 

Johnny Dogs and his brethren were gathered in the front parlor, drinking champagne from the bottle and chasing any maid who gave them a wink. Arthur was hanging off Tommy’s shoulders, drunk already, and Lizzie had just caught a glimpse of Charles and Ruby and Alice peering through the railings of the stairway, watching as the party eddied and swirled. She’d sneak off to tuck them in (again) soon enough, but for now she was buzzed and comfortable and happy. 

“It’s a good likeness of you,” said Ada, linking her arm through Lizzie’s and steering her across the parquet floor of the entry hall. They stopped beneath a large, though not garish, oil painting that hung along the stairs. “And I quite like the pose.”

In the painting Lizzie was astride Sylph, who was alert and bright-eyed and focused on something beyond the frame. Lizzie had been laughing at the camera, the reins held loosely in her left hand. They’d been packing to move from Arrow House, and in reality Lizzie had been wearing a loose dress that had hiked up around her thighs when she’d jumped on the big grey without a saddle. Her bare legs were wrapped around Syph’s barrel, comfortable and sure, and in the painting her dimples were showing. Ada had taken the original picture, and Tommy had sent the negatives off to the painter, all without Lizzie’s knowledge.

Tommy’s arms wrapped around Lizzie’s waist, and he stuck his head in between hers and Ada’s. 

“Tom, I’ve been wondering. Are you capable of hanging up a picture that doesn’t contain a horse?” Ada asked.

“He’s got some of the kids,” said Lizzie mildly, still looking up at the painting of herself. 

“Without horses or your progeny?” Ada asked, lemon-tart.

Tommy dropped a kiss to Ada’s cheek before walking around to stand beside Lizzie, her hand clasped warmly in his. “What else would I want to look at?” he asked. 

Ada rolled her eyes. 

Part of Lizzie felt guilty for loving the painting as much as she did. It had already been hanging on the day they’d moved into Griffith’s Park, a _fait accompli,_ and that was just like Tommy. Bold as brass he was, her gyspy robber boy. 

(It was a painting of _her,_ a happy one. One without the studied formality of the six-foot portrait of Grace.)

“C’mon, beauties,” he said, towing Lizzie towards the dining room. “I hear Arthur’s going to give his speech.”

“Oh god,” said Ada, grabbing a flute of champagne from a passing waiter. Lizzie smiled and took one as well, feeling like she was made of bubbles, too. She’d never thought she could be this happy. She’d never even dared to _hope._

A few of Tommy’s Labour Party allies from Parliament had driven up for the housewarming party, and they were looking as relaxed as possible under the circumstances. The general mood was two-parts gypsy fair, one part Society celebration. The clothes were fine, but the people in them were rough, and….

It didn’t fucking matter. It didn’t fucking matter because they were all people, from the pickpocketing Lee children to the blue-haired Society matron who was sitting at the fire with Sabina Dogs. They were laughing about something, the gypsy and the blue-blood. Maybe that’s all it took, Lizzie thought. A warm fire and enough champagne to drown a fish. World peace would follow. 

“Hey!” Arthur yelled, opening his arms wide. “Listen up!”

Ada made a smothered whimpering sound and swallowed her champagne in two long gulps. “I promised him I wouldn’t interrupt him this time,” she said. “And he wouldn’t let me hear his speech in advance, so-”

“It’ll be alright,” said Lizzie, smiling over at her brother in law. For once, she believed it. 

“I’ve been informed that some of you don’t like my fucking toasts,” said Arthur, raising his glass in a mock-salute. “But that doesn’t matter much, does it? He-” said Arthur, pointing to Tommy. “He likes what I say just fucking fine, and that’s all that matters, innit? Because he’s not just Tommy Shelby, MP. No, my little brother’s gone and got himself a fucking baro-net-cy. He’s a fucking Lord, but none of us are surprised. He’s been lording himself around since he got his first real pair of trousers.”

The crowd laughed at that, buoyed along by free drink and the gaiety of the evening. 

Tommy stepped forward and clapped Arthur on his shoulder. “Welcome to Griffith House,” he said, looking around the room. “I want to thank you for coming out to celebrate with me tonight. I’d especially like to thank those who’ve been with me since Watery Lane. I wouldn’t be here without you. To the Small Heath Rifles, lads! We haven’t lost yet.”

He’d looked right at her, then. Met Lizzie’s eyes and said, “ _I wouldn’t be here without you_.” Insider her dumb, stubborn heart, that little seed of hope grew. 

Shouts of “ _Small Heath Rifles!”_ and _“the Peaky Blinders!_ ” echoed through the room. 

“Now go finish drinking me out of house and home,” said Tommy. “Bar’s open, the fire’s warm, and the night is long.”

Everyone laughed again, and the band started to play, and it was… joy, Lizzie decided. Ephemeral and fleeting and giddy. 

Tommy sought her out and dropped his heavy wool coat over her shoulders. “C’mon,” he said. “Real party’s outside.”

They went down the steps and across the lawn, down a dip in the land to where Charlie Strong and Curly had a bonfire burning jewel-bright against the open darkness of the horizon. There were a few gypsy wagons parked on the edge of the treeline, and Lizzie knew there were more on the eastern side of the property. A four-piece scratch band was playing, the bright notes of a fiddle and banjo and guitar and drum sailing off to the stars. Tommy pulled Lizzie down onto the grass beside them, and Curly passed a jug, and then Lizzie was sipping apple brandy strong enough to make her eyes water. 

“Think I prefer gin,” she said, and Tommy smirked. 

Ada filtered down from the house with Finn, and then came Arthur, and Lizzie didn’t know who it was that started the dancing first. She only knew that this was something deeper than the music itself. The fire called to her, warmth and light in the night. The fiddle sang and the drum took on the sound of a great, primordial heartbeat, a tether to the warmth of the earth that slept beneath their feet. Tommy was dancing with her, his body familiar and his hands sure. Arthur was laughing, his hair long and shaggy in his face. Finn had talked one of the Lees into dancing with him, though based on the gleam in the girl’s eye she knew _exactly_ who was in charge of her seduction. 

Lights from the big house shown down over the lawn, but didn’t quite reach the ever-expanding ring of dancers. Even Charlie Strong was dancing, his face still stoic, but with a gleam in his eye. 

When Curly carefully rolled another log into the fire a shower of sparks flew up into the sky, popping and crackling as they went. Tommy took Lizzie’s hand and spun her out of the circle of firelight and into the trees, and Lizzie could almost _feel_ her laughter unspooling behind her as she went. 

“Wife,” said Tommy, leaning his body against hers and pressing her back against a wide old oak tree. 

“Husband,” said Lizzie, leaning forward to steal a kiss. 

“Enjoying yourself?” he asked. 

“Of course,” she answered, sliding her hands inside of his suit jacket to press her cold fingers into the warmth of his body. 

“I’ve enjoyed watching you,” he said, pressing forward to mouth along her jaw. “Pretty, happy Lizzie. _My_ happy Lizzie.”

“Yes,” Lizzie whispered, tilting her head back to give him easier access. 

“Want you so fucking bad,” he said, running his hand up the outside of her leg, tugging at her dress with frustration. 

“Then have me,” said Lizzie, reaching forward to cup Tommy through his trousers. 

“So close to the others?” said Tommy, raising one dark eyebrow. 

“I’m game if you are,” said Lizzie, twisting her wrist and watching in satisfaction as Tommy’s eyes dilated and his jaw clenched. 

When she slid down his body to kneel in the soft cover of leaves, Lizzie heard Tommy’s breath hiss out of him in a stuttering sigh. She worked his trousers open and his cock free, and then stole a glance up at him. The faintest flicker of distant firelight caught the angles and planes of his face and made him look untouchable and severe; an old testament god set among sinners. 

Lizzie was that sinner, and oh, did she enjoy him. 

She teased him first, laving the flat of her tongue against the thick vein on the underside of his cock. He shivered, and both his hands came down to tangle in her hair. Lizzie ignored the gentle urging of his fingers: instead of taking him into her mouth she wrapped her hand around the base of his shaft and visited the same path again, this time dragging the tip of her nose along his cock, peppering wet kisses here and there as the spirit took her. 

“Lizzie,” Tommy rasped, his hands going _painyestight_ in her hair. “Now.”

She obeyed, taking him between her spit-wet lips and slowly bobbing her head until her lips pressed against her hand where she still gripped the base of his shaft. She had her other hand braced on the tense muscle of Tommy’s thigh, and she could feel how tightly he was holding himself; could sense that if he loosened his rigid control even an inch he would be thrusting up into her mouth. 

She wasn’t going to make him wait. Lizzie drove him up brutally, bobbing her head and glancing up at him the way he liked, knowing her mouth and chin were damp and obscene around the source of his pleasure. All she could make out of him, her husband (her _husband)_ were his eyes, glittering above her like stars. 

Tommy’s hands pushed at her head again, trying to get her to take him deeper, faster, harder. Lizzie ignored him; she knew how good this could be if he was patient, if he let the trajectory of his pleasure build and build and grow and grow into a joint-weakening cataclysm of pleasure. 

“Lizzie,” Tommy groaned, all the warning she got before he was coming in hot spurts against the back of her throat. She gagged a little but swallowed gamely, continuing to swallow even as he began to soften in her mouth. 

“Fuck,” Tommy mumbled, backing away from her and reaching down to tuck himself into his trousers. “Fuck, Lizzie.”

She grinned up at him, unashamed of the way her mouth and chin were wet with her efforts. This was _theirs;_ this incendiary physical bond had always _always_ been theirs. Their reconciliation and emotional bond had only deepened what they’d found in each other’s bodies. 

Tommy stepped forward, cupped Lizzie under her arms, and dragged her up against him. She was tangled in her skirts but that didn’t matter, Tommy had her. (And, she dared to hope, he always would.) 

He backed her up against the heavy tree and kissed her, wet and sloppy and almost painful. “Look at us,” he rasped. “Fucking look at us. Lord and Lady, eh? What kind of baroness does that? Goes on her knees for her man; fucks him out in the open fifteen yards from the family?” 

“I do,” said Lizzie on a sigh, letting her forehead fall forward to rest on Tommy’s shoulder. He was pressed against her at the hips, and his hand had rucked up her skirt and pushed aside her knickers to get at the hot, wet center of her; the place that had been molten and needy since Tommy had danced with her around the wild, roaring fire. 

“Yeah, you do,” said Tommy, his fingers winnowing through her wet folds to find the bud at the apex of her sex. He showed her no mercy, just as she’d done to him: his fingers were gentle but persistent, circling around and around her clit just the way she liked. 

“I love having you like this,” he muttered, turning his face so his lips were right at her ear. His voice was almost enough to have her coming; rough and low and so fucking _smug._ “The way you can be so aloof, so fucking capable, and still be wanting me like this. Needing me like this. This is mine, Lizzie,” he said, his free hand coming up to hold her head against his shoulder. “ _Mine.”_

Lizzie whimpered, beyond agreeing with him. He smelled like home, he sounded like sin, and his fingers- oh those clever fingers- were arousing her nearly to the point of pain. 

“Come on, pretty girl,” he muttered. “Come for me.”

She did. 

~~~

Another misty morning. Another stubbled field. 

Dawn was breaking over the hills to the east, the pale pink light catching on the frost and sending tiny prisms of brilliant light up into fog and soft, still air. 

Tommy could smell woodsmoke from the vardo and a hint of spring in the heavy, damp morning. Lost in the mist, one of the horses stomped and shuffled, whuffling into the grass, and fuck, if this was peace, Tommy had never felt it before. 

“It’s beautiful,” said Lizzie, padding silently out of the fog, her eyes focused over his shoulder to the clear sky beyond. 

She was wearing her heaviest boots, which were unlaced and flopping on her feet. Her legs were clad in the breeches he’d bought her, and she had one of his shirts half-tucked in and unbelted. One of her hats had been jammed on over her sleep-mussed hair, and she was beautiful too. 

“It is,” said Tommy, his back still to the eastern horizon. He’d spent so long running from this, from the taint of gypsies and Small Heath and the deep, dark earth of French tunnels. 

Lizzie walked up to Tommy and leaned into him, her arms loosely around his waist and her weight pressed into his. He dropped a kiss to her temple, breathing in the fading smell of her soap and woodsmoke and the lavender that hung in the vardo’s rafters. 

“We’re supposed to find the parish phone box this morning,”said Lizzie, her voice muffled by Tommy’s coat. “We said we’d ring Finn about his construction business, and I’m sure Frances wants to know that we yet survive in the wilderness.”

“Alright,” said Tommy, willing to let the day’s worries stay untended for just a little bit longer. 

“And we’ll need to stop in a town, too,” said Lizzie. “Charles lost his bar of soap down that last stream, and we’re almost out of rice-”

“Lizzie,” said Tommy, cupping her face. 

She blinked at him. 

“Hush,” he said, pressing a smiling, chaste kiss to her mouth. “Just hush. Want to tell you something.”

She dimpled, her eyes going sly, and kissed him back. “Yeah? And what does Mr. Baron Shelby have to say.”

“That’s Lord Baron Shelby to you,” said Tommy, wanting to catch the laughter in her eyes and bottle it for any dark days ahead.

Lizzie kissed him again, rocking forward onto her toes to crash her mouth against his in a playful, slightly painful kiss. “You don’t seem to be doing much talking.”

Tommy grabbed a fistful of her hair, accidentally knocking her hat into the damp grass at their feet. Neither of them noticed. Her eyes dilated, her lips parted, and Tommy had to remind himself that their children would come tumbling out of the wagon at any moment. 

“I don’t pay you for it anymore. In my head, I stopped paying you for it- for all of it- a long time ago.”

Lizzie looked away from him, her profile so familiar and comforting and-

 _Fuck._ How did he tell her that the war he’d carried inside his head had gone quiet? The tanks were gone, the shells had stopped, and poppies were growing over the trenches? What were the words for that? He never had the fucking words- but maybe, this time he did.

“I guess- fucking hell. I know it’s not easy, and it never fucking will be, but I love you. I fucking love you, Lizzie Shleby. And I love those kids.”

Her expression went soft before rapidly changing to alarm. “Fuck, Tom, the doctor- you’re not sick, are you? We can go to London-”

It hurt him that her first assumption was that he’d only admit his love if he were dying. If he didn’t have to live with the consequences of his admission. His heart ached and his stomach clenched and he welcomed the pain, because he deserved it. 

“No,” he said. “I’m fine. We’re fine. It’s-”

The morning stretched on, golden and full of promise. 

“I just love you. Alright? And after everything, I thought you should know.”

She blinked, and then slowly, like the dawning of a new age, she smiled. “You’re a fool, Tommy Shelby. But you’re my fool, so I’ll keep you and love you right back.”

“Lucky man, me,” said Tommy, pulling her in close again. 

“Don’t forget it,” said Lizzie, her voice muffled and her fingers clenched in Tommy’s coat. 

Around them, the mist lifted. The vardo door opened, and Ruby and Charles came spilling down the steps in a torrent of noise and cheer. The war was over, and life went on. 

Hand in hand, Tommy and Lizzie turned to face it together. 

* * *

There are all kinds of love in this world, but never the same love twice. --F. Scott Fitzgerald

## THE END.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I didn't want this to end. I really didn't. But all things end, and the best thing we can do is accept that with grace. I am so, truly grateful for the love you've shown this story over the last couple months. I'm so grateful for you making this site feel like a community.
> 
> I hope you all are still out there happy and well. We're going to get through this. This is our war, I think, even though we didn't fookin sign up for this.


End file.
